


Aperture

by coxorangepippin



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gallery Owner Yuuri, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Viktor is too good at formal events, Yuuri is not good at formal events, artist!AU, photographer viktor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2018-11-08 15:43:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11084742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coxorangepippin/pseuds/coxorangepippin
Summary: Viktor Nikiforov is the most successful photographer in the world. He is successful, wealthy, acclaimed, and utterly uninspired.Yuuri Katsuki runs a small, but very successful art gallery in London. He is quiet and extremely talented, and has been in love with Viktor Nikiforov's work (and the man behind it) for as long as he can remember.Artist!AU in which Viktor and Yuuri meet at Viktor's latest exhibition, but post-champagne Yuuri doesn't remember it; Viktor, however, finds his inspiration again.





	1. Chapter 1

The gallery glowed like a jewel amidst the inky St Petersburg night. Snow swirled through the air, sticking to every surface that was foolish enough to remain exposed in such bitter weather; the high, wide windows of the gallery burned like a brave shout in the darkness, resisting the biting cold. From his position on the pavement outside, Yuuri could hear the sound of tinkling laughter and murmured conversation, overlaid by the occasional popping of corks and the hard staccato rhythm of stilettos on polished wood floors.

Reaching for the glass door in front of him, his fingers hesitated a few centimetres from the surface, their heat leaving small impressions of fog, like a premonition. His hand came up to tug at the borrowed bow tie that Phichit had had to tie for him earlier that evening, trying to relieve some of the overwhelming sense of impending doom that hung over his head like a storm cloud. Yuuri did not like crowds. Yuuri did not like formal occasions. Yuuri did not like enforced socialising with people that he did not know, and would likely never see again.

His wide, brown eyes shut tightly for a few seconds, his hesitation allowing a few of the more determined flakes of snow to make their way into his hair. He knew that Minako was counting on him; knew that this would be a huge opportunity for making contacts with people in the artistic community in Russia. Knew that Minako had threatened in no uncertain terms to rend him limb from unsociable limb if he didn’t go this event, and consequently failed to network with artists that she was positively drooling over, hoping to stock their work in their small gallery in London. With her dire warnings ringing in his ears, Yuuri found the necessary courage, and pressed his fingers to the plate glass door, which swung silently open.

Taking a deep breath, Yuuri plastered his best attempt at a charming smile to his lips, and walked forward into the swirling mass of people.

The snow, deprived of its perch, fluttered to the ground, melting into the impressions left behind by Yuuri’s feet.

********

White light flashed in Viktor’s face, momentarily obscuring his view of the faces that surrounded him. He blinked through the temporary blindness, and when his vision cleared, he found a sea of faces looking up at him expectantly. Smudges of jewel bright dresses and the contrasting black and white of tuxedos blurred into one amorphous swirl of colour, losing all meaning in the reflected glare of the spotlight. _Another exhibition opening,_ he thought, _nothing I haven’t done a thousand times before._

Viktor knew that he was beyond privileged to be able to pursue his passion for photography as his full time job, and knew too that he was unusually talented; he had been called the greatest talent of the age, a living legend, by the press for many years now. But as he stood in front of his recent works, he felt the dullness that had been lying heavily on his soul for a few years now solidify still further. The first time he had picked up a camera, the first time he had captured something no one else could see in a scene and shown it to the world, he had felt a dizzying rush of love; that love was still there, but it was overlaid by years of parties with beautiful, superficial people, years of winning awards as though by default, with none of the genuine challenge that Viktor loved. And tonight, he knew, would be no different. Just another gallery opening, another night of pleasantries and light laughter, and then finally he could escape back to his adored poodle Makkachin, who never looked at him as though he was an untouchable legend, or just a source of money and fame.

A slightly nervous voice came from the podium to his left, emanating from a handsome young man he dimly remembered as being one of the gallery assistants, and jolting Viktor out of his dismal train of thought.  
  
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you would please welcome the man of the hour, Mr Viktor Nikiforov!”  
  
The response was instant and enthusiastic. Applause and shouts of congratulations echoed among the exposed rafters, and seemed to grow louder the longer they bounced from ceiling to wall, ending as a constant dull roar that filled Victor’s ears as he stepped forward to the podium, and readjusted the microphone to his height.  
  
Drawing a deep breath, and summoning a disarming smile, Viktor waved his hands for quiet, and the room settled into an expectant hush. “Goodness, what a charming welcome! Thank you all for coming here tonight to celebrate with me on the launch night of my latest exhibition. I am very proud of the months of work that these photographs represent, and I hope that you will be able to connect with these landscapes as I have. Please, enjoy the evening, and take advantage of the open bar!”  
  
Warm laughter and scattered applause followed this comment, and Viktor stepped down from the podium, and out from under the glare of the spotlight that had been trained on him. As the hubbub of the room reasserted itself, the people in the crowd turned back to their conversations, and Viktor found himself momentarily isolated. Surveying the sea of people, searching for someone that he knew, Viktor was suddenly struck by the fact that there seemed to be one other person there that evening who was not immediately drawn back into the crowd; a fairly young, dark haired man was standing in front of one of his photographs, expression rapt and entirely unnoticed by anyone else there.

Viktor noted his figure (soft, with no hard lines, the polar opposite to the tall and athletic men who made up the rest of the male population of the gallery), and noted also the slightly awkward fit of the suit he wore; as though it had been designed for someone slightly smaller than the man currently wearing it. All in all, Viktor decided, the sort of figure which ought to be painted by the Old Masters; which ought to have renaissance artists breaking down the doors of time and space in order to paint endless portraits of this man. Viktor’s eyes drifted upwards, and he finally examined the man’s face. It hit him like a blow to the back of the head.  
  
It was pale, with the look of someone who had not spent much time outdoors recently. He had a slightly snub nose, a soft mouth ( _His mouth was utterly baroque, Chris, you don’t understand. That mouth was made for being hand fed grapes by a cherub,_ Viktor would later sigh), and wide, dark eyes which were currently fixed on Viktor’s favourite piece in his latest photography collection; a view from the very top of one of the mountains that he had spent months living on, a view which encompassed rivers, lakes and endless, endless sky, pinpricked with a multitude of stars.

It was one of the pieces which had been critically divisive; those critics who always adored his work had, of course, praised it, but the inversion of perspective (looking _from_ a mountain as opposed to looking _at_ a focal point, as in his other work) had been condemned by many others as lacking in his usual and renowned compositional strength. But it was the one Viktor loved the most, because it was the one which he felt encapsulated the spirit of those solitary, majestic peaks the best; it was how the mountains looked down on the valley, how they saw the infinitesimally small humans who scrambled up their sides and marvelled at their beauty. The look in the man’s eyes showed clearly that he felt it too; the freedom that those mountains must feel, their detachment, and their solitariness that was nonetheless not loneliness.

Viktor was enraptured. Through this man’s gaze, he felt the worth of his art; he understood the reason that he was standing here, in this echoing gallery, surrounded by eddying whorls of people who did not feel as he knew his art had the potential to make people feel. If, Viktor felt, his art had given this much joy to just one person (and it wasn’t just any person, it was this person, this man right here), then his entire career was justified. Viktor gazed at the man, watching him lost in the photograph, and the echoing conversations seemed to dim to a faint murmur in the background; Viktor felt suspended, both present and outside of what was happening around him, sharing the moment with his unknowing partner in it.

Then, a hand fell onto his shoulder, and noise and movement returned with a suddenness which made him startle.  
  
“Vitya.” said the gruff tones of Yakov in his ear. Viktor spun on his heel, losing sight of the man who had so captivated him. Yakov was standing next to him, and the set of his eyebrows told Viktor in no uncertain terms that there would be no further staring at strangers permitted that evening.  
  
Summoning his most charming heart shaped smile, Viktor beamed, and carolled “Yakov! Hello! How are you finding the evening? Have you had champagne? Is Lilia here with you? I haven’t seen her in what feels like an eternity..!”

Viktor’s voice trailed off under the sheer weight of Yakov’s unimpressed scowl. Viktor sighed. In an attempt to head off the inevitable lecture about artists needing to promote their work in person, not just allow the pictures to speak for themselves because _yes, Vitya, they’re wonderful, but most people are Philistines and heaven knows you ought to realise by now that most journalists can’t comment on the compositional merits of anything other than your cheekbones,_ Viktor sighed, and said “I’m just about to start networking. Honestly. I am meditating my plan of attack.”  
  
Yakov huffed as though he knew full well Viktor had been doing nothing of the sort (and he probably did know, thought Viktor, because Yakov had an eerie level of insight into Viktor’s thoughts), and growled “Fine. Just make sure that it’s an effective plan of attack, because you know that half of the civilised world has been waiting for this exhibition for a year, and you need to build up publicity again after disappearing off to those damn mountains that apparently had extremely intermittent phone signal. Go and network, Vitya. I have enough to worry about tonight in trying to run this damn event without keeping tabs on you”.  
  
Viktor turned away with a bright smile, fully intending to resume staring at the beautiful, world-altering gaze of the man who had loved his photograph. But, when his eyes searched through the crowd to the spot he had been standing, the man had utterly vanished, as though he had never existed. Viktor felt his heart ice over; he had been planning to observe for a few more minutes, because he had never seen anyone so open-heartedly appreciating his art as he wished everyone could appreciate it, and then go and speak to him. Find out his name. Find out his favourite drink. Bring him some, charm him effortlessly, enquire about his feelings for poodles, and in short order marry him and whisk him away to his home for a life of domestic and marital bliss. But now he had to find him. Had to find those dark, dark eyes and ask him exactly what he felt when he looked at that view from the mountain.

Networking be damned.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri manages to socialise a little too effectively.

Yuuri fervently wished that he had abandoned this evening before he had pushed open that damned door to this enormous, echoing gallery. It now seemed to be mocking him from one end of the room with its promise of an easy escape back into the cold, dark, and blessedly silent night.

Yuuri had entered, promising himself faithfully that he was going to be charming, sociable, and sparkling; within approximately thirty seconds, he had abandoned this plan, choosing instead to hide behind a pillar at the edge of the room. The problem with being charming, he realised, was that it necessitated actually speaking to people. Tall, beautiful, terrifyingly loud people. All of whom seemed to know each other, and all of whom clearly had better things to do than talk to a pitiable gallery owner who had been invited (Yuuri was sure) by mistake. However much he mentally bludgeoned himself for being such a coward, he simply couldn’t seem to find an opening. Whenever he spotted someone who didn’t look too intimidating, they would immediately ( _and as if_ , he furiously shouted in the privacy of his own head, _someone was deliberately trying to torture him and had planned this on purpose_ ) be drawn into conversation by someone who looked fascinating, and accomplished, and like they actually wanted to be there.

To give himself something to do, and to try and distract himself from the frustrated, anxious bubble that had started to worm its way into his chest, Yuuri examined the room he was hiding at the edge of ( _waiting_ , he told himself. _I’m waiting for an opportune moment. Not hiding_ ). The gallery was an enormous, open plan room, with impossibly high ceilings; all plate glass and dull bronze, incredibly cutting edge and entirely impersonal. The photographs that formed the exhibition were displayed in huge frames hanging from the white walls, their colours brought to life by the soft glow of the amber lights which hung down from the ceiling, suspended a few feet above the heads of the party goers like a thousand flickering candles.

Suddenly, there came a voice from the podium at the far end of the room (regretfully, Yuuri noticed that it would take him still further away from the door, further away from an escape).

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you would please welcome the man of the hour, Mr Viktor Nikiforov!”

Yuuri followed the people crowding around the small stage, ending up at the edge of the crowd and at the back, peering over the heads of the many people in front of him.

He had heard of Viktor Nikiforov, of course; the man was a living legend, having won nearly every prize that the art world had to offer someone who specialised in photography. Viktor Nikiforov had begun his career in Russia, and was discovered at an impossibly early age by the renowned agent Yakov Feltsman; he had represented Viktor ever since, and Viktor’s work had become a phenomenon that even people who usually scoffed at art and artists would pay through the nose for. How much of this was because they appreciated his work, and how much of it was down to the charm which blossomed from the man at every turn, Yuuri had never been sure.

There was no doubt in Yuuri’s mind that Viktor was a once in a generation talent; possibly a once in a lifetime talent. His early work had been full of vivacity, playfulness and a deep sense of humanity; he took aspects of mundane, everyday life and made them into art. But in recent years, Yuuri had begun to feel something else in Viktor’s work. Where once there had been depth and warmth, Yuuri felt that his recent collections had been colder; more beautiful, more technically accomplished, and infinitely sadder. Most people had not noticed this, Yuuri felt, dazzled by the ever greater lengths to which Viktor had gone for his art, but Yuuri felt the loss of something he couldn’t quite name, and mourned for it.

And then, Viktor stepped on to the podium, and Yuuri’s musings were silenced as all the air seemed to vanish from his lungs. He had seen Viktor’s picture a thousand thousand times, (had secretly saved the features on him from every magazine, actually, not that he had ever told anyone about this apart from Phichit), but it had not prepared him for the reality of the living legend himself being a mere twenty feet away from him.

He was an impossible dream of a man, his long silver hair bound behind his head and spilling over his back, with one wayward strand brushing over his high forehead and cheek, barely contrasting with his pale and perfect skin. He had a strong jawline and razor-sharp cheekbones, which were contrasted by the softness of his mouth. His crystal blue eyes looked up from under silver lashes and seemed to cut through the air like an arrow; to Yuuri, it felt as though Viktor could see things that he could not, that those eyes which had seen such beauty in the mundane and captured it forever had acquired an otherworldly quality.

Viktor gave a speech, but Yuuri barely heard it, too captivated by watching Viktor’s face as he spoke to focus on his words. Minako had told him he was lucky to be invited to this event, lucky to be one of the selected gallery owners that Yakov Feltsman had deemed worthy, and that he had better try and charm Viktor or else. But Yuuri knew before Viktor had even stepped off the stage that he would never, never, not in an eternity have the courage to speak to this man. It wasn’t just that he was heart-stoppingly, heart-breakingly beautiful, it was that Yuuri was sure that Viktor had more talent in one strand of his beautiful hair than Yuuri did in his whole body, and that therefore speaking to him would somehow be an insult to whatever gods created Viktor.

Before Viktor finished speaking, and sinking under the realisation that the entire evening was going to be utterly wasted, and that his trip to Russia would be for nothing, Yuuri turned aside, to examine one of the photographs on the gallery wall beside him. And all thoughts of his inadequacy, Viktor’s perfections, and the squirming ball of shame and embarrassment he felt at his inevitable failure that night left him immediately.

The photograph he was examining was not one of the ones which had been released before the event; it had not made the covers of the various magazines which have raved about Viktor’s new collection. It was a view from the perspective of the top of what must be the highest mountain in the range, looking down over rivers, trees and rocky outcrops, taking in the view of the sky scattered with stars as though the mountain itself were one with it. Yuuri was entranced; he stepped closer, ignoring the wave of applause which burst across his back, dimly noting in some distant area of his brain that that must mean Viktor had finished speaking. He felt the awful majesty of the mountain, the years that it must have stood, and the solitary grandeur of its lofty position, which was not loneliness, but self-sufficiency. He felt his heart rise-

“YUURI!”

His transcendent moment shattered into fragments, broken by the excitable, unsquashable, and infinitely welcome shout which Phichit had practically bellowed into his ear. Phichit was standing next to him, both arms around Yuuri’s shoulder, looking immaculate as always, his dark eyes sparkling.

“Phichit!” Yuuri breathed, feeling as though his heart would burst through his chest with relief.

“Isn’t it WONDERFUL Yuuri? Did you hear Viktor’s speech? Have you looked at the collection? Have you met anyone interesting?” Here Phichit paused for breath, and apparently noted Yuuri’s position, which made it very clear that he had been hiding from the crowd, because he arched a perfect but unsurprised eyebrow, and declared “We’re going to get a drink, I am going to introduce you to EVERYONE, and you are going to have A. Good. Time. Understand Yuuri? You look ravishing, everyone here is delightful, and if you really can’t stand it after twenty minutes I shall personally accompany you back to the hotel. Agreed?”

Yuuri had little option but to be dragged by Phichit’s undertow towards the bar, where the muted pop of frighteningly expensive champagne provided a percussive undertone to the conversations which had rekindled following the speech. In short order, Phichit had got three glasses of the champagne into Yuuri’s mouth (the waiter serving it looked utterly scandalised), had placed two more in his hands, and had pulled him over to a conversation that Phichit had no qualms about jumping into the middle of. The champagne had begun to mellow his brain, winding honey golden tendrils into his thoughts and making these beautiful people seem less intimidating.

In fact, Yuuri thought with the impeccable logic of those three glasses in to a bottle, I ought to drink more, because that will render them even LESS intimidating.

Beginning to smile for the first time that evening, Yuuri raised another glass to his lips.

 

******

 

An hour or so later (Yuuri wasn’t quite sure how long it had been, because he was having the _best_ time), the exhibition moved from the airy gallery with its pristine photographic prints to the downstairs bar.

To Yuuri, this seemed like an amazing idea. The best idea. A wonderful, beautiful and perfect idea, because he was having the best time ever, and he wanted to spend more time with his new friends, who were also beautiful and wonderful and perfect (and he would, undoubtedly, remember their names in a minute).

The bar opened out before him, low ceilinged and dark, and the thumping bass of a speaker resonated in his chest. The press representatives had left, and the only people left seemed to be other gallery owners, artists, models and other people in the business. The further Yuuri descended the stairs, the more he began to feel the beat of the music shuddering through the air, and suddenly, he felt he wanted nothing more than to dance. But he didn’t want to dance on his own. Where was Phichit? Looking around, Yuuri spotted Phichit very much occupied (whoops, should _not_ have looked) with a very attractive man in the corner of the room.

Everyone was moving slightly to the beat, in that slightly embarrassed way of non-dancing, but Yuuri could feel the pounding, sultry music in his soul, and their stilted movement wasn’t _enough_.

He turned around, feeling the walls begin to spin slightly, and came face to face with an exquisite, elfin featured blonde boy with green eyes, covered head to expensively loafered toe in what appeared to be leopard print in grey and black. That is to say, he would have been exquisite if he hadn’t been sporting a scowl that looked as if it could strip paint. Yuuri had met him earlier (if you could count Yuuri smiling and getting an acidic glare in return meeting). What had been his name? Y- Yu- Ah! He was the other Yuri!

“Dance with me!” sang out Yuuri, grasping the blonde boy by the wrist, who recoiled as though Yuuri had poured boiling water on him. “But I can’t dance with you until you change your name. I’m Yuuri. You’re Yuri. It’ll get confusing. From now one, I dub thee…” and Yuuri raised his voice, pitching it above the thumping music so that everyone would hear and no one would be confused, because Yuri was a _nice_ person, he thought, and everyone ought to know his new friend’s new name, “YURIO!”

Yuuri beamed, pleased with himself, pleased with his new friend, pleased with everything.

A red haired woman with a kind smile started laughing just behind Yuuri. “Ahhh, what an excellent new name! Yurio! Thank you Yuuri, you’re right, it would have been confusing. Now, Yurio, aren’t you going to dance?”

“Shut up, hag.” Spat the teenager, stepping backwards as if to prepare to sprint away, “I am NOT dancing with this drunken idiot. You dance with him. Make Viktor dance with him, he’s always got time for that sort of crap”.

It was at precisely this moment, however, that Yuuri noticed the long, slender pole in the corner of the room.

 

********

 

Viktor had, inevitably, been caught up in the endless round of press interviews and photographs, sound bites and autographs, that always accompanied the opening of an exhibition. He kept glancing around distractedly during his interviews, attempting to locate the beautiful dark eyed man who had seen his photography for what he meant it to be, but Yakov waggled a very threatening eyebrow at him until he stopped. Viktor had always found that a single one of Yakov’s eyebrows could communicate imminent bodily harm extremely effectively, and so he had given up searching with a sigh.

By the time the press had left, and Viktor was finally free, the party was beginning to move downstairs into the basement bar.

Viktor loosened his tie, and carefully tugged the restraining band out of his long hair, shaking it free to spill over the midnight blue of his suit like a ray of moonlight. He followed his stylist Georgi and his publicist Mila into the darkened doorway of the bar, and froze, his knees locking like a startled fawn. He had been expecting the usual semi enthusiastic dancing that happened at these events, everyone having fun but too restrained to really cut loose.

What he was confronted with was the semi naked body of someone with a soft, rounded figure, someone whom he felt he would recognise from a thousand miles away, wrapped in an unfeasibly flexible position around a pole set into the corner of the room.

Viktor felt his reason fleeing without even a whispered farewell.

The dark eyes which had captured him earlier were now half shut, the dark irises smouldering and melting, as the man bent himself into another unbelievable position, supporting himself with his arms whilst he hung upside down in a perfect splits position. Viktor stared, feeling his blood begin to heat and sing in his veins.

People were dancing in the space around the pole, cheering and laughing, but Viktor barely even saw them, so focussed on the man on the pole that his vision seemed to narrow to a pinpoint.

Viktor suddenly felt someone elbow him in the ribs, breaking his stare and bringing him back to reality.

Chris had sidled up to him, looking distinctly rumpled, and with the collar of his immaculately cut suit hanging loose. From the corner of his eye, Viktor spotted the attractive Thai painter (Phichit Chulanont, he remembered, Yakov had insisted he was invited) disappearing into the bathroom, looking equally rumpled.

“Stop drooling, Viktor” said Chris in his melodious voice, a mixture of accents from a life lived in many countries that Viktor could never quite pin down with any accuracy.

Viktor felt the question rise to his lips, unstoppable, with a fierce need that he only half understood.

“Who is he?” he half whispered.

“Yuuri Katsuki. He owns that tiny gallery in London which everyone wants to be featured in. You know, Yutopia? The one which Minako ran until a year or so ago? Yuuri is the one who took it on when she decided to go back to her sculpting.”

Viktor formed the words “Yuuri Katsuki” silently, feeling their music on his lips.

He turned round, and with a sudden death grip, latched on to Chris’ wrist.

“Introduce me.”

 

*******

 

When he got home that evening, Viktor burst into his apartment and flung himself down onto his couch without bothering to take off his shoes.

He could feel the champagne bubbling through his brain, and the taut pull of his muscles as he sprawled without any of his usual grace. But that wasn’t what had him smiling so widely that it felt as though his face would crack; for the first time in years, Victor felt his heart singing with excitement, his blood humming in his veins.

Makkachin, woken up by his exuberant entrance, came padding slowly over. Viktor threw his arms around his dog, burying his face in Makka’s soft fur.

“Yuuri Katsuki, Makka. That’s his name. Yuuri Katsuki”.

Makkachin whuffled in agreement, and curled up to go back to sleep, next to Viktor on the couch. But Viktor lay there for a long time, feeling that sleep was far, far away from him at the moment; he could still see those dark eyes, feel the firm and confident hands on his waist as they danced, hear the soft laughter that had fallen into his ears like rain.

When he finally fell asleep, he was smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the second chapter- I hope the POV changes aren't too confusing. As soon as Yuuri and Viktor officially meet when Yuuri is sober (soon!), then there won't have to be such a split point of view style.
> 
> Next chapter: Yuuri has a world-ending hangover! Yuuri returns to London! Vicchan is still alive! Viktor is confused!
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at cox-orange-pippin. Please say hello! 
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


	3. Chapter 3

Sunlight struck Yuuri’s face, slanting through his closed eyelids as though trying to pry them open. The bright ( _horribly bright, painfully bright, God whose idea was it to make sunlight this bright in the first place?_ ) rays' faint warmth kicked his sluggish brain into motion, and forced him to accept the horrible reality of the fact that whilst he may, in fact, be alive, he was also, in fact, as hungover as any human individual on this earth had ever, ever been. _Barely hanging on to life by the fingertips_ , his hazy mind supplied.

He rolled over, feeling something pulling around his neck; he groaned, realising that he was still wearing his tie from the exhibition party. Thankfully, he saw his phone and wallet left on the bedside table; he must have had some presence of mind left, whatever else happened last night.

He checked his phone; there was a text from Phichit, checking that he was still alive, and telling him that he didn’t get a chance to say goodbye as he had an early flight. There was also a string of suggestive emojis (which seemed to heavily feature aubergines? But there hadn’t been any at the party) that Yuuri didn’t even begin to attempt to decode, his foggy brain protesting even the weak light from his phone screen. It was about midday; at least he had several hours before his flight was due to leave.

Yuuri heaved himself out of bed, wobbling slightly when he tried to stand up, and peeled off the tie and his suit trousers. He staggered into the bathroom, and after spending a solid half an hour standing under the blisteringly hot shower, he began to feel somewhat more like a human being, and less like something dredged up from the primordial soup. With returning clarity, however, Yuuri felt the beginnings of panic. What had happened last night? He had woken up alone, and wearing (some) clothes, so hopefully nothing too scandalous.

He decided that for the sake of his sanity, it was better not to ask Phichit what all those emojis had meant, and that whatever he had done, it was better to stay blissfully ignorant. He hadn’t received any outraged texts from Minako, or blackmail material from Chris, so he couldn’t have been too outrageous.

He pulled on his most comfortable clothes, a navy blue jumper and a soft pair of ancient and perfectly worn in tan cotton trousers, and ambled around, retrieving the detritus he had somehow spread through every corner of the hotel room. With the dull feeling of failure sitting heavily in his stomach, Yuuri reflected that he had not achieved much last night by way of networking, and he was dreading the long flight back to London.

As he removed a pair of socks from where they had inexplicably become wedged behind the dressing table, he thought that there would be no trace left of his time in St Petersburg; an utterly wasted journey, no contacts, no connections, and now no memories of the event which he had had such high hopes for. Sighing, Yuuri finished packing, and peered under the bed and desk to check he had not left anything vital.

So, he thought. It’ll be like I was never here.

 

********

 

Yuuri arrived home to the rapturous welcome of his poodle Vicchan, the quiet warmth of his parents, and a friendly grunt from his sister.

Now that he had returned from university, home, for Yuuri, was the tall Georgian town house next door to his parents’ bookshop, ‘Ice Castle Books’, in a quiet street hidden away from the endless bustle of London. From Yuuri’s high-up loft bedroom window, he could see the long garden shaded by his mother’s beloved wisteria, the road with its Victorian streetlamps adorned with curling ironwork fish, and then the river Thames, stretching out into the distance before him in the same comfortingly familiar way it had since they had moved there when he was too young to remember it.

If he looked from the other window, the one that took up most of his other wall, he could see for miles across the London streets, see the bright splashes of the people hurrying on their way through the narrow streets, and the church spires piercing the clouds that were usually present in the drizzle-soaked but still beautiful capital.

Yuuri loved this city, with history soaked into every stone he walked on; when he felt the weight of his thoughts settling heavy about his shoulders, bending his spine and pressing him heavily into the ground, Yuuri would throw open his windows, sit high above the city and watch the river streaming past him, allowing it to pull the tension and drowning fog from his mind and pull it away, into the fast flowing grey water.

The flight home had been torturous. His shower and breakfast had erased the worst of his hangover, but Yuuri had still felt like a wrung out piece of flannel by the time he arrived at the airport, his bones like water and his headache only mostly subdued by painkillers. His flight had been delayed, his luggage had been almost the last to appear at Heathrow Airport, and he had had to sit in the omnipresent traffic that laced its way through most of the capital for an hour before he had finally spotted the tall, graceful house he had been longing for since the moment he woke up that morning.

When he finally reached the butter yellow front door, Yuuri was almost ready to sit down and sleep on the doorstep rather than put one more foot in front of the other; but before he could put this plan into action, the door opened, and his mother’s face appeared in front of his bleary eyes. She smiled- and then she noticed the bags under his eyes and the exhausted stoop of his shoulders.

Yuuri found himself efficiently whisked into the house (where he was immediately greeted by an almost painfully excited Vicchan), sat in front of the fire in one of the enormous armchairs, given a steaming bowl of noodle soup, and then as soon as it was empty hauled upstairs to sleep.

As Yuuri’s eyes drifted closed, and he felt the warmth of Vicchan by his side, he could only find a small part of his brain was adequately worried about the dressing down Minako was certain to give him the next day. As he fell into an exhausted sleep, the bells of St. Thorfinn’s at the end of the street began to toll eleven o’clock; smiling, Yuuri fell asleep with the comfort of home in his heart.

 

******  


This peaceful welcome was, however, not destined to last. Six o’clock the next evening found Yuuri again dragging himself up the steps to his yellow front door, not burdened with luggage, but still smarting from the tongue lashing Minako had give him from the minute he had stepped into the gallery that morning.

Though Yuuri now ran the gallery, Minako had built it from the ground up some twenty years ago when she had first moved to London from Japan along with Yuuri’s parents. A tall, elegant building hidden behind the King’s Road, Yutopia was spacious and well lit, with high ceilings and wide windows that gave a wonderful view of the street below. When Minako had arrived, it had had almost nothing inside it except mould and spiders. Minako had poured her heart and soul into it, and now Yutopia was one of the most sought after galleries in the whole of the culturally overflowing city. Artists would fight viciously for the chance to be featured on Minako’s walls, and those that made it often went on to be outstanding in their fields. As Minako had aged, and as Yuuri’s talent in art had begun manifesting, she had slowly involved him more and more in the running of the gallery, until Yuuri had unknowingly become as adept as Minako herself. Then, last year, Minako had informed Yuuri that she was going to return to her first love, sculpture, and that he would be responsible for Yutopia from that point onwards.

Never one to withhold that which could be pointedly stated, Minako had also informed Yuuri that if he dared to damage the impeccable reputation and carefully curated web of influence that Minako had painstakingly created, she would devise a punishment of biblical proportions, and future gallery owners would speak his name in hushed tones as a cautionary tale for all eternity.

She had, in fact, reminded him of this from the moment he had confessed that the Russian expedition had not, overall, been a resounding success. Upon further prodding, Yuuri had been forced to admit it may even be termed only an equivocal success. In an attempt to forestall any further enquiries, Yuuri had attempted to bury himself in the paperwork that had arrived whilst he had been away; some forms to fill out for their upcoming exhibition.

After Minako had stared at the back of his head for a few solid minutes, silently and menacingly, Yuuri had begun to sweat, the pages in front of him blurring into a haze. Unable to stand the laser intensity of her narrowed eyes, Yuuri had eventually confessed that he had not made any solid contacts, had forgotten exactly who he had spoken to, and that he had in fact been unable to speak to Nikiforov himself due to a combination of nerves and champagne. Minako had swelled like a bullfrog, and Yuuri had only eventually managed to escape the ensuing tirade with vague assurances that he had some promising leads to follow up on from the event.

And now, Yuuri’s mind was occupied with how exactly he was going to invent plausible leads that would keep Minako satisfied until she had forgotten about the Russian trip. Yuuri gloomily reflected that this might be several years worth of subterfuge. He hauled his weary body up the stairs, calling out a half hearted greeting to his family, and was fully intending to collapse onto his bed for several hours to try and erase some of the less flattering adjectives Minako had employed from his consciousness.

His last thought before he flung himself face first onto the bed was that it could have been worse. Minako could have physically torn him limb from limb.

 

*********

 

Life in Yutopia continued as usual for the next few weeks. Phichit returned from visiting his family in Thailand, and moved back into his small flat a few streets away from Yuuri’s house. Minako eventually relented, and began speaking to Yuuri in tones other than acidic again. Yuuri threw himself back into his routine; seeing Phichit, meeting artists, hosting events, and attending exhibitions in London. He loved the ever-renewing art community, which never stood still for more than a few minutes; always there was something new to see, some different way of looking at the world.

Yuuri also kept a surreptitious eye on the coverage of Viktor Nikiforov’s latest exhibition, telling himself it was his job as a gallery owner to be aware of the latest in his field (and if he spent longer staring avidly at the pages showing Viktor’s face than his photographs, then nobody ever pointed it out).

Yuuri had found himself busier than usual as winter gave way to spring, and the incessant rain gave way to dim sunshine which filtered through the clouds with cautious optimism. The most important event in the gallery’s year was fast approaching; the selection of that year’s artist in residence.

One of Minako’s earliest innovations at Yutopia, the post of Artist in Residence was awarded each spring to the most innovative applicant in any medium. Applications had been arriving for months, and the deadline was two days away. Yuuri knew he would have to make a decision soon, and that as this was his first time choosing in his capacity of gallery director, he would have to prove himself as adept as Minako at choosing a future sensation. 

So, one afternoon in late April, Yuuri found himself spending long hours in his office, a comfortable open plan room at the back of the first floor. Yuuri sat in his high backed chair, and spread the reams of paper over his unfeasibly enormous desk, which took up about half the room. He had received submissions from nearly every possible type of artist imaginable. Sculptures, paintings, textiles; a huge amount of talent was on display as Yuuri leafed through the applications. But something was missing, he knew. Whilst undoubtedly everything Yuuri was looking at involved a huge amount of technical skill, none of them had that element of surprise and delight that he was looking for, something which would truly make the artist unique.

Sighing, Yuuri pushed his hair out of his eyes, and rubbed the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. He had two days. Two days to find someone who would save him from ruining Yutopia’s reputation of supporting only the best and brightest; two days to save himself from ignominy and despair, sackcloth and gnashing of teeth.

Yuuri was aware of a sudden hot wave of panic, deep in his chest, and felt an overwhelming desire to escape from his suddenly-too-small office. Standing up, and causing a minor avalanche of paper, Yuuri grabbed his coat from the back of his chair, and was preparing to leave when he heard the front door open, and then shut. _Of all the times for a visitor_ , Yuuri sighed.

Striding out of the office and trying to look welcoming, and not as though he would rather the unexpected visitor left immediately, Yuuri opened his mouth to welcome the visitor-

And stopped.

The only noise he manage was a half-pronounced, very soft screech.

Viktor Nikiforov had just walked in through his gallery’s front door.

Viktor Nikiforov, world sensation, and the subject of every single one of Yuuri’s most wildly unrealistic daydreams, was standing on his physical human feet in front of Yuuri.

Yuuri blinked, and tried very hard to say something, anything, _anything_ , but his short-circuited brain was resolutely silent.

Viktor Nikiforov, apparently not surprised by Yuuri’s sudden inability to speak, smiled his signature ( _utterly, utterly radiant_ , sighed Yuuri's semi-functioning brain) smile.

“Yuuri!” he sang, his rich voice vibrating in Yuuri’s chest, for all the world as though they were the closest of friends.

Yuuri, already mentally only a few inches away from the line marked 'definitely dreaming', was entirely unprepared for his next sentence.

Viktor beamed again, and held out his hand as though bestowing a benediction.

“I’ve come to be your Artist in Residence!”

 

********

 

A few streets away, several pigeons were startled into flight by an incoherently shrieked word which echoed across the house fronts before fading away.

 

“ **WHAT**?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Viktor has arrived! Thank you so much to anyone reading this- I know it's not perfect, but it's my first attempt so please be kind.
> 
> Please leave kudos if you enjoyed!
> 
> Also, in case anyone's wondering why London in this story is apparently nothing like actual real life London- I live there, and I'm essentially using my favourite bits as though they were all next door, because I don't think anyone wants to read about having to get the tube everywhere. So if it doesn't translate onto a map, that's why!


	4. Chapter 4

Yuuri lay splayed on his back, feet resting on the wall, his head hanging off the edge of the bed and hair nearly brushing Phichit’s lemon yellow rug. The room was light and airy, decorated in shades of gold and grey and littered with sketches in a vivid array of pencils and watercolours, but at this moment Yuuri would have prefer that everything be hung in mourning black in deference to his mood.

He had one arm covering his eyes, and one arm trailing in the air as he talked, sketching designs as though holding a sparkler.

“And then,” Yuuri moaned, his voice agonised and low, “He just stands there and says 'I’ve come to be your artist in residence!' And he’s living above _my gallery!_ And he won’t leave me alone when I’m trying to work! And whatever cologne he uses has taken over the air conditioning system and now everything I touch smells of sandalwood, which is alarming considering I expected Vicchan to smell like _dog_! It’s almost like he’s spraying it deliberately!”

There was the sound of a couple of light footsteps, and Yuuri felt the protective arm across his eyes being pried loose by cool, strong fingers, and opened his eyes to Phichit’s grinning face a few inches above his own, dark eyes dancing wickedly and immaculately white teeth glinting in a wide smile.

“You could have said no,” Phichit said, voice light and teasing. “You could have told him to walk right back out of the door and apply like every other poor hopeful artist, like yours truly had to a few years ago.”

Yuuri groaned again and tried to re-cover his eyes, but Phichit still had a grip on his wrist.

“I couldn’t say no,” he said in a doleful tone, “Because he’s _Viktor Nikiforov_. You know, the living legend, the God, and everything he touches turns to gold. I couldn’t pass up that chance for the gallery.”

“Or yourself,” muttered Phichit, and Yuuri threw a pillow at him.

“Well what about you and that Swiss model, whatever his name was? Giacometti?” Yuuri looked up and saw that a flush had spread its way across the back of Phichit’s tanned neck, and was on its way to claiming his ears.

Phichit lifted his nose in the air, affecting a lofty indifference to such crude questioning. “A gentleman wouldn’t ask me such questions, but then I suppose you’re not a gentleman.”

Out of pillows to throw, Yuuri opted instead for a rude hand gesture. Phichit was his dearest friend, and he knew that he would get the truth out of him soon when Phichit wanted to tell him.

Groaning, Yuuri rolled off Phichit’s bed, landing on the thick rug with a muffled thud, scattering leaves of paper like a drift of snow.

“I’d better get going, it’s nearly eleven- I promised I’d take Viktor sightseeing today, because he’s been begging me all week and I couldn’t think of seven consecutive excuses.”

Yuuri left Phichit’s house pursued by loud a “Oooooooh!”, slamming the door behind him with a little more force than was strictly necessary to cut off the sound.

 

Arriving at the gallery fifteen or so minutes later, Yuuri skidded around the corner of the road the gallery was on, and stopped in his tracks, arrested by the breathtaking sight of Viktor Nikiforov lounging against the ivy covered ironwork railings at its front. Pausing, Yuuri admired the picture that he presented, elegant limbs arranged languidly as though draped on the air itself, back leaning against an ornate old lamp-post. He was wearing a black turtleneck, black trousers, and a dark forest green pea coat, which was long enough to nearly brush the tops of his ankles and tobacco-brown ankle boots. The colours were rich and deep, and contrasted beautifully with the spill of silver hair which was held back by a black leather tie, with one stubborn strand permanently drooping into Viktor’s eyes. No one else, thought Yuuri breathlessly, could wear such expensive clothes with such an easy nonchalance.

And then Viktor saw him, looking up with that heart-stoppingly bright heart-shaped smile, his eyes crinkling half shut in delight, and as always Yuuri’s mind turned to semi-conscious static.

“Yuuri!” he called, excitedly bouncing away from his lounging post, and almost skipping up the street towards him.

“Hello,” Yuuri said softly, intimidated again by the sheer presence of Viktor, who could make any room seem too small simply by his being in it.

“Are you excited for our sight-seeing day? I’m so glad you finally agreed to take me!” Viktor sang, his hands clasped in front of him like a Renaissance painting.

Yuuri smiled, and said that he would lead the way, walking in the direction that his feet had taken him thousands of times before. Viktor followed like an eager puppy, pointing out the pigeons and the colour of a front door and his delight in the weak sunshine that had split the perpetual clouds.

And as Viktor chattered, Yuuri thought, his mind only half listening to Viktor’s words. He had indeed been avoiding Viktor, venturing into the gallery only when strictly necessary; whenever he entered (unless it was very early in the morning), Viktor would appear within seconds, bright and loud and _there_. It was too much. Yuuri couldn’t talk to this man, this _idol_ , the one he had admired above all others since he was old enough to know what art was. You just weren’t _supposed_ to find the subject of every one of your teenage fantasies, the face that appeared in your most heated dreams, in front of your living eyes every time you wanted to finish some paperwork, Yuuri thought glumly. He knew this was a tremendous chance for the gallery and for his career, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but wish Viktor was slightly less…interested.

Yuuri had always been quiet, always one who preferred the company of a few to a crowd. Though he had always had friends growing up, he had never really found his people until he had taken over the gallery, when he had met Phichit; through him, Yuuri had met other people whose eyes shone like his when they spoke of their work, and their passions. He had never been the centre of attention, and now he suddenly found that he was.

Viktor wanted to know _everything_ about him. What Yuuri’s favourite food was, how old he had been when he had first taken over the gallery, his feelings about art and family and _the_ _weather_ , for heaven’s sake. It felt a little like being thrust into a bright spotlight when you had expected forgiving darkness, and though Yuuri was finding it wearing on his energy levels, a small part of his brain had begun to enjoy the spotlight, to bask in Viktor’s attention, and Yuuri knew this was very, very dangerous.

Because this was _Viktor Nikiforov_. The living legend. And though he had inexplicably decided that Yuuri’s gallery was worthy of his presence for one year, after that he would be gone, and Yuuri knew he would be thrust out of the spotlight, back into the crowd. And he wasn’t sure if he would survive if he let himself get too attached, if he let himself grow used to the glare of Viktor’s attention, like a planet breaking out into life under the glare of a new sun, which would die when the sun winked out of existence.

Yuuri looked up, broken out of his abstraction by the absence of Viktor’s voice, to find the subject of his musings looking down at him, clearly having asked a question.

“I’m sorry, I was…what?” Yuuri asked, his mind still half mired in speculation.

Viktor smiled, and repeated: “I asked you, O Great and Mighty Tour Guide, where are we going today? What do you intend to show your esteemed guest?”

Yuuri gulped, and hoped that his answer was the right one.

“I thought…we could go to the National Gallery? It’s my favourite place in London, and it’s somewhere you really ought to see even if you’re not an artist. Then we could see Trafalgar Square, and walk down the Mall to Green Park if it’s still nice out, and look at Buckingham Palace? And after that…I’m not sure. Does that sound alright?”

Viktor’s beam was answer enough. The two of them walked together, in a comfortable silence, to the tube station, squeezing on to the carriage among the other Londoners, the air thick with the smell of people’s winter coats and the low hum of the carriage as it moved quickly underground.

Emerging from the station at Charing Cross was like being born again, the winter air hitting Yuuri’s throat like a blessing after the crowded underground. Viktor kept pace with him as they rounded the edge of the station, and were faced with Trafalgar square, bisected by two huge fountains and watched over by Nelson’s column.

Viktor looked around him, eyes shining, and then looked up to see the National Gallery, tall and imposing, its columns draped with banners. Seizing Yuuri by the hand (Yuuri’s heart lurched at the contact), he dragged him through the fine spray of the fountains and up the steps, not stopping until they were at the huge entrance hall.

“You lead the way, Yuuri!” Viktor said, his voice bright with excitement, and there it was, that slightly Russian darkening of the vowels when he said Yuuri’s name, that made Yuuri feel as though he was the only other person in the world at that moment. “This is your favourite place after all! Who knows, maybe I’ll find some inspiration for my residency here!”

Yuuri nodded, and let his feet carry him on the familiar route that would lead them past his favourites, the Gallery having been a haunt of his for so long that he knew it like the back of his hand.

They passed paintings by Gainsborough, Canaletto, Constable, Raphael…so much beauty, as Yuuri always thought, in one building.

And as they wandered through the enormous, echoing rooms, each painted in soothing green or terracotta red, Yuuri talked. Here, in his space, his world, he was able to respond to Viktor's questions without blushing or stuttering. He guided Viktor to each of his favourite paintings, and shared more about himself than he had in the week since Viktor had arrived. He told him of the loneliness of growing up feeling that you had no real niche, no real sense of belonging; how he had found it at the gallery, with Minako and the paintings that had captured the entirety of his soul. Viktor gazed at him, enraptured at this glimpse of the soul of the quiet man who walked beside him.

As they paused here and there to admire a detail, Viktor would speak softly too, trying to avoid the reproachful glares of the gallery attendants that would pounce on anybody shattering the quiet with so much as an errant sneeze. Viktor told him of growing up in a family with very little, and of retreating to the galleries in St. Petersburg because they were warmer than his small bedroom with its draughty windows. Yuuri studied him closely as he talked, and was struck by the sudden realisation that Viktor Nikiforov was not composed of stardust and diamonds as he hd thought he was; rather, this was a man who had suffered, who had striven for his status with every inch of his being, clawing his way to success and eventually reaching the very pinnacle of his profession.

“Of course,” Viktor said as they studied the (strangely crowded) painting of the Rokeby Venus, her nude figure languidly extended across her sheets, “Those days are behind me now, and I was able to make sure my mother and father were never cold again.”

“And…are they…” Yuuri trailed off, not wanting to invade Viktor’s privacy any more than he was welcome to.

Viktor smiled. “Another story for another time,” he said, closing the subject firmly but with no hint of anger. “Now, Yuuri, I would like you to show me your very favourite work in this building full of treasures, because I sense that we haven’t reached it yet.”

Yuuri flushed slightly, and smiled tentatively. Viktor’s answering smile was dazzling, and quite a few of the people who had been studying the Venus with her decadent curves found themselves drawn instead, like moths to a flame, to Viktor’s face.

Yuuri turned, and led the way down an old hallway to a less well-populated room, with elaborate cornices and walls painted the blue of a summer’s evening, hazy and entirely out of keeping with the chill air outside. In the middle of the room, Yuuri paused and turned to the wall, where he gestured shyly at a painting hanging there.

“This one is my favourite,” he said, “Because it was the first painting I remember seeing here, and it’s the one which made me pick up a paintbrush to see if I could try to copy it. Of course it didn’t go well, but…” he trailed off, seeing that Viktor was entranced, gazing at the painting as at a revelation.

It was a Turner painting, all soft clouds blazing with the rosy colours of sunset, surmounted by the hazy sun of a summer’s day. There was nothing obvious of interest in the composition, but the sky looked so vibrant and vital that it seemed to cast heat into the room even as they stood there.

Viktor gazed, transfixed, for a few silent minutes. Yuuri could almost see the cogs turning in his brain, and wondered what he could possibly be thinking.

Eventually, Viktor broke free of his reverie, and spoke softly. “Thank you, Yuuri,” he said, “For sharing that with me.”

Yuuri smiled, and nodded, the first true and unguarded smile he had given Viktor, and he saw a very faint flush paint itself across Viktor’s high cheekbones, mirroring the faint pink flush in the sky of the Turner he stood next to.

“Shall we go and get something to eat? It’s nearly one,” Yuuri said, noticing his watch for the first time that day.

 

Twenty minutes later, they sat on the cold lip of one of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, clutching hot soup in takeaway cups, warming their hands through the cardboard and watching the living maze of people wend its eternal journey through the square. The spray from the mouths of the enormous fish that ranged about the fountains cast itself into a glittering mist in the sun, which had finally made a real appearance; Viktor stuck his tongue out at one of the grinning statues, and Yuuri nearly inhaled half of his soup in his laughter.

They watched as tourists climbed the dark iron lions at the base of Nelson’s column, their broad polished backs providing little purchase for clutching hands, many sliding off with a laugh or a curse. Nelson himself, always watchful, stood at the tip of his column, the ever present pigeon perched atop his hatted head to prove that pigeons were no respecter of rank when it came to a good seat.

Finished with their lunch, and with the warmth of the soup radiating through his chest, Yuuri led Viktor through the crowd of bodies until they reached The Mall, and with it the soothing foliage of Green Park.

Viktor sighed when he saw it, and Yuuri looked at him questioningly.

“I was just wishing Makkachin was here to see this,” said Viktor with a hint of sadness in his voice, “She would go mad for these huge parks. So many squirrels,” he laughed.

“Where is she?” Yuuri asked.

“Well…” Viktor suddenly looked guilty, and Yuuri cocked his head at him as they began to stroll through the wide paths next to the lake. “She’s actually still in Russia, staying with my agent, Yakov. It would have taken a few extra weeks to get her certified to travel, and I knew that the deadline for your artist in residence post was coming up, so…”

Viktor trailed off, and Yuuri patted him on the arm sympathetically, making Viktor jump. But Yuuri could see the sadness in Viktor’s eyes, and knew exactly how he would have felt in the same situation.

“I know how you feel, he said quietly, “Whenever I have to go away for work and leave Vicchan here, it feels like a part of myself is missing.”

Viktor brightened at the mention of Yuuri’s poodle, whom he had only met briefly in one of Yuuri’s abortive attempts to get some paperwork done in the previous week.

“Can you tell me more about Vicchan? When did you get him? Does he like it here?”

They passed the remainder of their walk discussing their dogs, their similarities and differences, and telling stories of how they had got into trouble. Viktor confessed that Makkachin was the only one who kept him sane when working on an important project, and Yuuri told the story of the time that Vicchan (whilst still a puppy) had eaten the whole roast duck that his mother had prepared for dinner; when they had found him, he had been almost spherical, and delirious with joy, although the vet had not been very amused.

They paused at the edge of the lake to throw bread, purchased from a nearby stall, to the swans which glided serenely across the water, and then abruptly lost their dignity as soon as there was food in the offing, scrapping and honking in their rush to reach it.

Then they reached the edge of the park, and saw the gilded height of Buckingham Palace rise up in front of them, striped on every side by tall iron railings.

By the time they had taken pictures (Viktor with his phone, seeing as he hadn’t wanted to bring what he called his _real_ camera out with him), the winter sunlight was fast slipping over the horizon, and their thoughts began turning to the snug, dry interiors of the cafes that lined the streets.

Yuuri insisted that Viktor come back with him to a small café near Gallery Yutopia, because they did the best hot chocolate in London, and Viktor willingly agreed. They wended their way back through the darkening streets, lit by the flickering orange of street lamps as they switched on, and finally arrived back near the Katsuki’s house and the gallery.

The café that Yuuri led them to, Maison Du Soleil, was a small, modern building, full of exposed filament light bulbs and deep green leather seats. As the door opened, a waft of warm, coffee scented air hit them, too enticing to resist.

As Yuuri ordered two hot chocolates from the young woman on the counter, Viktor sat at a wooden table which sat next to a tall window, giving them a wonderful view of the steady but small stream of people that passed by.

Yuuri brought their drinks over, and they sipped them, the sweetness of the chocolate warming their frozen fingers.

Viktor sighed with contentment, sinking back into the green leather armchair (looking, Yuuri thought, more like a Chanel perfume advertisement than any one human had any right to), and Yuuri caught a sudden noseful of that maddeningly addictive scent that had seemed to lay over the whole gallery for the past week.

“What’s your cologne?” he blurted out, his mouth running on autopilot, and then clasped his hands over his mouth, horrified that he had actually asked.

Viktor looked up with an expression of mild surprise, his hot chocolate balanced elegantly in its white porcelain mug on his long pale fingers. “I’m not wearing any,” he replied, his silver eyebrows raised slightly in a question.

“Oh,” Yuuri murmured, sure that he was blushing so fiercely that passing cars would stop if they caught a glimpse of his face through the window. “Never mind. I just…never mind.”

 _But then_ , Yuuri wondered, _what is it that smells so good? Surely it can’t just be him..?_

They finished their drinks, and wandered back out into the biting air, now dark and lit only by the sporadic orange pools of illumination cast by the streetlamps.

As they reached the door of the gallery, Yuuri murmured that he really ought to go, and that he would see Viktor soon, not wanting to overstay his welcome or break the miraculous charm that had meant _Viktor Nikiforov_ would want to spend the day with Yuuri Katsuki.

Viktor, for some reason that Yuuri couldn’t fathom, suddenly lost the bright eyed expression he had worn all day, and adopted the expression that he wore in his press releases; glittering and hard, diamond-like.

“Unless…” Yuuri said, his voice wavering uncertainly.

Viktor paused in the act of opening the side door that led to the flat above the gallery, the official residence of the gallery’s sponsored artist, and cocked his head questioningly, his long spray of silver hair flicking outwards and glittering in the half light.

“Would you…I mean, I know that you’re not here to socialise with my family, but…would you like to come for dinner?” Yuuri asked, his voice hopeful and yet half expecting Viktor to scoff at him. No matter how human he had seemed that day, how open and kind, Yuuri knew that the man in front of him was still an international star in the art world, and very likely had better things to do than to come to dinner at the Katsuki’s. But he had seemed, that afternoon as he talked of his dog, and as he didn’t talk about his parents, as though…maybe he was lonely..?

Viktor’s mouth fell open, his lips forming a perfect ‘o’.

Yuuri immediately turned to leave, apologising, murmuring “Of course, of course, I’m so sorry, I knew you’d be busy, I’ll see you-”

He was cut off by the feeling of strong, warm arms clasping around his back, and his vision was suddenly obscured by the pale fall of Viktor’s hair. “Yes, Yuuri,” Viktor murmured in his ear, causing goosebumps to erupt on Yuuri’s neck, “I would like that very much.”

And then his arms were gone, and their absence left a cold more biting than the chill air on Yuuri’s skin, somehow. Viktor was smiling, the same man he had been all day again, no hint of the diamond-hard exterior he had worn a few moments ago. Smiling so widely it seemed as though his face must crack, he gestured for Yuuri to lead the way, and they made their way to the tall house with its butter yellow front door, soon enfolded by the warmth of the welcome that waited for them inside.

 

That night, the Katsukis and Viktor ate katsudon in celebration of Viktor’s new position as artist in residence. Yuuri’s father, Toshiya, joked inappropriately about Yuuri’s baby photos, threatening to show them all the most embarrassing, just to see the expression on Yuuri’s face. Yuuri’s mother, Hiroko, gazed at her son and his handsome guest, and smiled secretly to herself, as Viktor praised her food as the best he had ever tasted. Mari, eternally flippant and entirely herself, restrained herself to pinching the best bits of Yuuri’s food and eating them as he spluttered. And Viktor, seated in the middle of this family that he had never met before, felt himself more truly welcomed and welcome than he ever had been by all the people that praised his talent to the skies, and then demanded more, more, more.

 

After Viktor had left that night, Yuuri had first roundly scolded his family for embarrassing him, then run up the stairs to his bedroom, taking them two at a time, feeling a burst of energy in his limbs that had nothing to do with the food or the laughter, and everything to do with the feel of Viktor’s knee leaning against his under the table, the brief brush of his fingers as they both reached for the water at the same time.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Yuuri muttered to himself, flinging himself on to the bed and pounding his face into the pillow in time with the words.

This was, he knew, the most foolish thing he had ever done. He tried to ruthlessly stamp on the feelings that he felt fluttering in his heart, threatening to burst onto his face in a brilliant smile.

“Viktor is _famous_ ,” he muttered to himself, facedown in the pillow, his words muffled and hot against his skin. “He is _brilliant_ , he is _talented_ , he is _internationally adored_ , and you are just a boy who has control of a gallery and is lucky enough to occasionally pick up on a talent before anyone else finds it. You will break your heart over this man and he won’t even notice. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.”

But that night, when Yuuri finally fell asleep, the last of the nervous energy leaving his system and allowing him to drift into darkness, he dreamed of Viktor, and of the phantom warmth of arms that enfolded him in a tight embrace.

 

*********

 

Viktor, when he finally shut the door of the flat that evening, leaned against the wood and smiled to himself, the joy flooding his heart almost painful in its intensity.

It had been a confusing, terrible week in many ways. Yuuri, his Yuuri, the one who had stolen his heart so completely, had seemed less than interested in even talking to him, let alone repeating the things they had said to each other on that wonderful champagne soaked night, not evening seeming to know _why_ Viktor was there.

Viktor had begun to wonder if he had made a terrible mistake, coming here to this cold and beautiful city, without even Makkachin for company. He had tried so hard, _so hard_ , to connect with Yuuri, listening for the door of the gallery and rushing down whenever he heard it. He had tried talking to Yuuri in the morning, in the afternoon, even the one occasion that he had come late at night, when Viktor should by rights have been asleep, but had been tossing and turning, homesick and heartsick and miserable. Every time, he had been met by a blank refusal to be drawn into conversation, Yuuri’s tone laden with something that Viktor couldn’t identify, but which sounded a little like fear.

But today…

The walls around Yuuri had, finally, begun to give slightly, and Viktor had seen the same man who had danced on a pole in Moscow and made a whole room full of artists fall instantly and madly in love with him. He had given Viktor something of himself, and in return, Viktor had cautiously lowered the façade that he kept firmly in place in public, the shell of beauty and brilliance which left people so dazzled that they couldn’t see him reaching out for help. And Yuuri hadn’t laughed at him, hadn’t asked him to leave him alone, or to go back to the dazzling version of himself that everyone seemed to prefer.

No, Yuuri had just been quiet, and thoughtful, and kind, and had shared his favourite places with Viktor with a shy smile that had splintered Viktor's heart under its gentle pressure, and then mended it again in a new shape.

 _He asked me to meet his parents_ , Viktor thought, hanging on to that fact like a life raft. The warmth of the family welcome still lingered in his veins, the flood of gratitude he had felt when Yuuri asked him still a fervent echo.

Soon, Viktor knew, he would have to start his work as artist-in-residence, but for now he was content simply to know that Yuuri, whatever game he was playing, did not hate him, had not entirely abandoned the feelings he had expressed that cold, snowy night in Moscow.

Viktor fell into his cold bed, longing for the warmth of Makkachin’s fur, and instead remembered the warmth of Yuuri’s frame in his arms, the softness and rightness of how he fit there. _Not enough_ , he thought, _not nearly enough, but a start_.

For the first time since he had arrived in London, Viktor fell asleep without tear tracks marking his pale cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! I absolutely haven't abandoned this story, even though I've been writing some other things at the same time- it just took me a while to work out where I wanted to go with it. I love both of these idiot boys, and writing them is so much fun.  
> Thank you so much to everyone who's left such kind comments, I appreciate them more than I can say <3  
> Just one thing- the POV on this fic is a little bit difficult to manage, as I was initially trying to write both of their sides of the story in regards to each event as it happened. However, I've realised this would end up with me repeating a lot of things. So I've decided to change point of view as it suits the story best, and only alternate when I think the alternative viewpoint will add something. Just in case anyone was wondering!
> 
> Please leave kudos/a comment if you enjoyed!


	5. Chapter 5

Yuuri awoke suddenly the next morning, going from deep sleep to complete wakefulness as abruptly as if someone had shouted his name. Reaching for his glasses, Yuuri crammed them crookedly onto his nose, the world coming suddenly into focus as he blinked in surprise. It took him a moment to identify why there was a hot, excited feeling fluttering in his chest, his mind gradually grinding into operation as he squinted at the sun streaming through his windows.

_Oh_ , he thought. _Oh. Last night, Viktor Nikiforov had dinner with my family._

With this thought, his newly awakened brain apparently lost its ability to process any further information, subsiding with a screech of mental gears into a hot and prickly mess of joy, mixed with baffled terror that it might have been a dream.

_But no_ , Yuuri thought, eyes half shut against the morning brightness as he sat up in bed, the covers falling away and exposing his skin to the weak sunlight. The memories were too vivid, too colourful to have been anything other than real.

_Oh my dear sweet lord_ , thought Yuuri, his eyes widening beneath the heavy frames of his glasses, his breath quickening and becoming shallower with the growing realisation that if the memories were real, then that meant... _._

_Viktor Nikiforov ate my mother’s katsudon. And he’s seen my baby photos. Even the one with the snail._

Yuuri leapt out of bed with a quiet cry of despair, propelled by a burning embarrassment which manifested as a blush so violent that it threatened to tattoo itself permanently onto his skin. A furious mental tirade ripped through his thoughts like a hurricane of acidic worry; _How could I have been so presumptuous as to invite him to eat with us? He’s world-famous! He probably only accepted to be polite! He couldn’t think of a kind way to say no!_

His sleep-heavy feet stumbled across the pale wooden floor, every footstep accompanied by the single thought _why, why, WHY?_ as he mentally replayed Viktor’s laughing reaction to Mari stealing his food, and his father’s recounting of the anecdote from his eighth birthday party which had already given him years of sleepless nights, and that was _before_ it was recounted in full to his idol.

As always when faced with an emotional crisis, Yuuri turned his shower up to the hottest setting and stood under it for half an hour or so, letting the water wash the shame from his mind and (slightly, at least) prepare him for the day that was fast looming as the minute hand ticked nearer to nine o’clock. Yuuri had a lot of paperwork to do, and as it was a weekend he needed to be on hand at the gallery, able to answer queries and play the welcoming host (even if he felt like he would rather melt in the heat of the shower and be washed away with his shampoo). Not to mention the inevitable endless stream of artists who ‘dropped in’ whenever Yuuri was around to try and promote their work to him.

_And that means_ , Yuuri thought gloomily as he towelled his hair, _that I’ll have to see Viktor. Who has now seen my baby photos. Even the one with the snail. Death, where is thy sting?_

Yuuri got ready reluctantly, taking his time over brushing his teeth, choosing his clothes with a little more care than usual, all to delay the inevitable meeting with his idol, the Living Legend, who must now see him as little more than a child wearing his father’s shoes and playing at being a gallery owner. _How could anyone who had seen the picture with the snail think of him any other way, after all_? Yuuri reflected, brushing his hair in front of the bathroom mirror, the clouds of steam from his over-long shower billowing into fantastic shapes with every slight movement.

Eventually, the small clock on his bedside table beeped nine times in a mildly chastising electronic tone, and Yuuri felt that he couldn’t in good conscience delay any longer. Picking up his phone and his keys, Yuuri examined himself in the long mirror on the back of his door, to double check that the clothes he had chosen made him look like a serious, business minded gallery owner, and not like the child who had been involved in the photo with the snail.

When he saw his reflection, Yuuri sent a fervent prayer of thanks to Phichit, who several months beforehand had manifested in Yuuri’s bedroom at some ungodly hour of the morning, thrown open his curtains and announced to a bemused and half-asleep Yuuri that that day was to be the day that Yuuri finally learned how to _dress_. When Phichit had said the word with that reverential emphasis, Yuuri had known he was doomed, and that resistance would only prolong the suffering. Whilst the day stuck in Yuuri’s mind as one of the bloodier battles he had ever fought against his own self-esteem and the harsh lights of endless changing rooms, he couldn’t deny that Phichit had done his job well, and on this morning of all mornings he was deeply grateful.

Yuuri had chosen a finely knitted inky-blue polo neck, and black trousers, which showed just a flash of butter yellow sock above his deep burgundy leather shoes when he moved. Along with his blue glasses, overall he looked the part he was trying to play, Yuuri considered.

Pausing only to throw on his old black woollen coat (which Phichit had been unable to part him from, even with his most creative threats), Yuuri descended the staircase from his room with an expression that would have been appropriate for a man heading for the scaffold.

By the time he had reached the gallery, his steps growing more reluctant with every minute that passed, Yuuri had worked himself into such a mental frenzy of horrified anticipation that he was sure Viktor would have already left, disgusted by the nobody who had had the temerity to use Viktor Nikiforov’s valuable time with his home cooking and stories of his reprehensible behaviour as a toddler.

As Yuuri reached the door of Yutopia Gallery, his palms were sweating and his heart was racing. His muscles braced as though expecting a body-blow, Yuuri pushed open the wide wooden door, his eyes shut tight against whatever bloody horror was inevitably waiting for him within…

When, after ten seconds of silence, nothing had happened, Yuuri opened his eyes. There was the gallery, whitewashed walls lit by small copper ceiling lights, the combined smells of oil paint and clay as familiar and comfortable as an old pair of jeans. There was no bloody reprisal painted on to the walls, no hint that Viktor had set fire to the building in his utter disgust at Yuuri’s presumption, and Yuuri began to realise that he had been more than a little melodramatic.

Blushing, and releasing his locked muscles, Yuuri stepped through the door, pulling off his coat as the warmth of the gallery enveloped him. It always felt like coming home, walking through that door, he reflected, as he wandered through the ground floor examining the latest paintings he had hung a few days before Viktor’s arrival (after Viktor’s arrival, he had not had the courage to hang any of the new pieces, for fear that Viktor would laugh at his taste).

The high ceilinged ground floor room was the gallery’s biggest space, and housed the events that Yuuri periodically hosted for up-and-coming artists, as well as more famous artists who got their start at Yutopia. The floors were pale wood that had been polished to such a high shine that you could see a reflection of the intricate cornices of the ceiling in them. The walls were white, in order not to clash with anything hung on them, and small copper lanterns hung from the ceiling at intervals, casting a soft light over the space.

Currently hanging on the walls were several of Phichit’s latest paintings (a series based around grey and gold, two colours that had obsessed Phichit for months now; they had already won several awards), a sculpture of Minako’s which dominated the space by the doorway, and several enormous oil paintings from an upcoming artist called Minami Kenjiro, whose overwhelmingly enthusiastic personality was reflected in the wild and vibrant colours of his canvasses. Yuuri looked at the balance of muted and brash colours, the graceful arrangement of the pieces around the walls, and hummed in satisfaction; anyone entering this room would be in no doubt of the calibre of talent that Yutopia attracted.

Yuuri ascended the stairs at the far end of the ground floor, wandering upwards toward the first floor, pausing at the window half way up the staircase to peer at the street below. The sun was making a valiant effort, and it looked as though winter was finally on the way out, and spring had decided to attempt a comeback.

Reaching the first floor, Yuuri looked at the bare walls with a strong sense of anticipation. The first floor was reserved for the artist in residence, for them to show their upcoming works, or details of their creative process, or simply to work in, whatever they wished. Currently, the room stood entirely empty, Viktor having not been there long enough to stamp his personality onto the blank walls; having seen something of Viktor’s effervescent presence, Yuuri reflected, it probably wouldn’t remain pristine and bare for long.

With that thought, Yuuri realised that Viktor had not, as he usually did, appeared the moment Yuuri put his foot through the door. Something of that morning’s panic began to cloud his mind again ( _what if he really had left? Why did he even come in the first place? He’s probably bored of you already, bored of everything associated with you, even this city, he’s probably already back in Russia_ ), but Yuuri viciously repressed it with an iron grip, banishing it to the back of his mind; _that’s where I keep all my deepest fears anyway_ , Yuuri thought grimly _, so what’s one more_?

His footsteps echoing on the bare wooden floor, Yuuri walked through the empty room to his office, and was greeted with complete chaos. Since Viktor had arrived, it had been almost impossible to get any work done, Viktor’s presence a bigger distraction than a fully-fledged mariachi band playing three centimetres away from his ear would have been; the floor was full of drifts of paper, the enormous desk looked as though someone had tried to overturn the contents of several filing cabinets on it, and there were more half-drunk cups of coffee than Yuuri cared to count.

Sighing, Yuuri got to work. For the better part of two hours, he shelved and sorted, catalogued and filed, until the paperwork had been organised into something resembling a to-do list. He threw the half drunk coffee into the bin, with a stern mental warning to himself not to be so wasteful, and wiped down the surfaces with the sleeve of his jumper (gaining some fleeting amusement from picturing Phichit’s expression if he had seen him treating cashmere in this casual manner).

Yuuri was intermittently interrupted by visitors to the gallery. Minami Kenjiro’s agent came by to check the positioning of his paintings, and left satisfied that they were sufficiently prominent. A few wealthy patrons stopped by to examine what was on offer; all of them were in raptures over Phichit’s work, and within a few hours, most of the pieces had been bought; Yuuri texted Phichit to tell him, and received a text with approximately three thousand heart emojis and two million exclamation marks in response.

Still, there was no sign of Viktor. Yuuri finished his filing, and began to work through the to-do list he had written himself, pausing now and again to field calls from various interested artists who were hoping to have their work displayed at Yutopia; as he always did, Yuuri asked them to come by in person some time in the next week with a portfolio.

Minako stopped by for twenty minutes, to check the positioning of the new artwork, and to inform Yuuri that she had found a buyer for her sculpture in the downstairs gallery; Minako had been an extremely successful sculptor before she turned her attention towards Yutopia, and many collectors were delirious with joy that she had returned to her previous career.

She also grilled Yuuri on his plans for Viktor, and how he was intending to make the most of this divinely-given opportunity that had fallen entirely undeserved into his lap. Yuuri blushed and stuttered, saying that he needed to speak to Viktor about it, and Minako had left unsatisfied on that count, but with some new suspicions that she decided to keep to herself for the time being.

By the time one o’clock arrived, Yuuri had finished most of his tasks for the day, and was feeling very virtuous. And very hungry. He stood up from his desk, feeling the creak of his spine as it reluctantly uncurled from its hunched over position, and turned to leave the gallery, reaching for the ‘closed’ sign he kept by his desk.

Wandering downstairs, Yuuri paused only to label the pieces that he had sold that morning with the buyer’s name; he would have them wrapped and shipped in the next few days, and replace them with the other pieces that Phichit had given him for display. Minako had told him that the buyer of her sculpture would arrange to come by personally to pick it up, so he left it unlabelled other than for a discreet ‘sold’ across the eye-watering price tag.

Jobs finished, Yuuri’s stomach was growing more insistent by the minute, and he turned to leave the gallery. Before he could reach the door, however, Yuuri heard the lock mechanism click open, and Viktor appeared in the doorway, framed as though a photograph himself, haloed by the cold sunlight.

His pale skin was slightly flushed from the cold, and around his neck was what could only be Viktor’s fabled ‘real’ camera; it was enormous, with a lens that looked like it must have weighed at least as much as Vicchan, and Viktor’s long pale fingers were clutched around it, holding it as though it was an infant.

Viktor paused, startled at his unexpected welcoming committee, and then a megawatt heart-shaped smile broke across his face.

“Yuuri!” he sang, his eyes crinkling shut in delight, and he closed the distance between them in a few strides of his long legs, seizing Yuuri in a hug, his camera awkwardly balanced between them, but his arms very warm as they wrapped around Yuuri’s back.

Yuuri, who had been equally surprised to see Viktor, felt all his muscles lock down in shock at this completely unexpected (though incredibly far from unwelcome) development. Viktor clearly felt his rigid stance, and pulled away quickly, his smile losing something of its brilliancy.

Yuuri felt the loss as a wound, and though he wasn’t sure what he had done, instantly scrambled to recapture the smile he had seen a few moments before ( _and oh, am I the biggest fool who is ever going to get his heart utterly broken,_ he thought wryly).

“Viktor!” Yuuri smiled, trying to infuse his voice with as much mature warmth as possible, the baby photos from the previous night etched on the dark of his eyelids every time he blinked, trying as always not to be dazzled by the sheer overwhelming presence of Viktor in his small gallery. “Have you been out?”

Viktor beamed again at the warmth in Yuuri’s tone, and leaned forwards with his camera held securely in his pale hands, until their heads were a few inches apart. He flicked a few switches, and then turned the camera round until Yuuri could see the screen on the back of it, displaying a very familiar sight; the façade of the National Gallery.

“I retraced our steps,” Viktor said, as Yuuri bent over the camera to study the tiny image, and for some reason Yuuri saw a very faint flush running over his high cheekbones as he said it. Yuuri bent his head again over the small viewfinder, clicking through the series of images, which ran from the gallery all the way to Buckingham Palace, and then to the small café in which they had had hot chocolate.

Yuuri’s practiced eye could see that these were not the finished articles, more preliminary sketches, but there was a nascent breath of life in them that Yuuri knew could be fanned into Viktor’s trademark style. “These are wonderful!” he said, looking up with a smile, to find Viktor’s head was also bent over the camera. Their faces were so close that Yuuri could feel Viktor’s breath on his face, and smell the divinely addictive scent of his hair.

Viktor looked up too, his icy blue eyes locking on to Yuuri’s, their blue becoming more stormy as Yuuri watched, and Yuuri felt his heartbeat racing, the blood pounding suddenly deafening in his ears. Viktor breathed out slowly, his breath fanning across Yuuri’s cheek, not breaking eye contact…

Yuuri bolted backwards. It was not elegant, or suave, or at all in keeping with the mature sophistication he had been hoping to project that day; he looked more like a startled spider, his limbs clumsy and tangled as he moved as quickly as he could away from the intensity of the moment. Viktor watched his scrambling movements with his bright smile, his eyes frozen blue again.

“I…I was just leaving…” Yuuri stammered, his heart still frantic. And then, a sudden, wild notion appeared in his mind, and was out of his mouth before he could think better of it, before he could stop himself going further down this path that would inevitably end in his own misery. “I was going…to get lunch, if you wanted to…?”

Viktor looked utterly, completely startled for a few moments, eyes wide and the usual long strand of loose hair falling into his eyes. Then, his eyes melted, and he smiled the heart-shaped smile that Yuuri loved ( _loved?_ His mind whispered to itself in shock), and nodded. Yuuri held the door open, and Viktor preceded him through it, the small ‘closed’ sign tinkling lightly against the wood as the door shut behind them.

Yuuri led the way to the small, slightly shabby sushi restaurant that was a few streets away from Yutopia. Viktor, unusually, didn’t keep up his running commentary of everything that was passing around them, seeming lost in his own thoughts, his eyes distant and slightly troubled. Yuuri shot covert glances at him from under his lashes, the heat of that moment back in the gallery still lingering in his veins, along with a thousand thoughts of what might have happened if Yuuri was one of Viktor’s talented, beautiful friends, what they could have done…

Yuuri wrenched his thoughts away from that tantalising direction, stating firmly to his own subconscious, _You are not one of those brilliant and beautiful people, and Viktor would probably rather kiss Vicchan than you, so stop wasting your brainpower on ridiculous fantasies._ Of course, this had very little effect, but Yuuri felt better for saying it.

They arrived at the shabby red door of the sushi restaurant, and Viktor seemed to come to himself again, his mind snapping back into the present with an almost audible click as Yuuri continued to steal glances at him.

“Where’s this?” Viktor asked, his eyes bright with interest, as Yuuri was learning they always were when Viktor was presented with something new.

“It’s a small place run by some old friends of the family,” Yuuri said, “And I know it doesn’t look like much, but they do the best sushi in London.” Suddenly, he paused, his dark eyes going wide in horror. “Oh my goodness, I didn’t even think to ask- how rude of me, I’m so sorry! Do you even eat sushi? We can go somewhere else, I know it’s not for everyone, there’s lots of other-”

Viktor cut off Yuuri’s increasingly panicky monologue by placing one of his gloved fingers against Yuuri’s lips, which had the desired effect; Yuuri was so shocked that he immediately fell silent (and he was devoutly grateful for the glove between them, that layer of fabric probably saving his sanity; he wasn’t sure he would have retained his reason if Viktor’s bare skin had touched his lips.). Viktor glanced quickly down at where his finger lay against Yuuri’s mouth, which was slightly open in surprise, and that faint flush appeared high on his cheeks again, which Yuuri found utterly mystifying. _Maybe Viktor was used to acting in this way with his friends, and he forgot it was me he was talking to?_ Yuuri mused.

“I love sushi. And I’d be delighted to eat anything that you recommended. I trust your taste, Yuuri,” Viktor said, his accent bending the vowels in Yuuri’s name in a way which made his heart stutter.

Yuuri gulped, and Viktor removed his finger from his lips, holding the door open for Yuuri and following him into the small, dark restaurant, which had no signs announcing its presence. There were a few other patrons there, sitting alone at the mismatched wooden tables, mostly old men Yuuri had known since childhood; they smiled at him before returning to their newspapers, lit by red shaded lamps that stuck out from the walls at slightly tipsy angles. It was a homely place, and Yuuri smiled back at the other customers, before stepping to his left and angling his face up a small wooden staircase.

“Yuuko!” Yuuri called, and there was the brief sound of running footsteps before a pretty, round faced young woman came bounding down the steps, grabbing Yuuri in a hug.

“Yuuri!” she cried, laughing as she crashed into him, letting him go only to seize his face between her hands. Viktor, standing behind Yuuri, went slightly paler, and if Yuuri had been watching instead of laughing at the exuberant welcome, he would have seen Viktor’s hands stiffen, the knuckles standing out white against his already pale skin, though his smile didn’t change.

“Yuuko!” said Yuuri, pushing her hands away from his face, “What are you doing?”

“You’re too pale,” she replied sternly, having finished her inspection of his face, “And you don’t look like you’re eating enough. You’ve lost weight since I last saw you. Are you looking after yourself?”

Yuuri squirmed out of her grip, blushing, and said in a half laughing, half embarrassed voice “I’ve _gained_ weight since I last saw you! And I know you have triplets, but that doesn’t mean you have to watch out for my wellbeing as well!”

Yuuko narrowed her eyes at him, and then noticed Viktor standing at Yuuri’s shoulder, face still frozen in a friendly smile that nonetheless felt as though there were knives behind it. “Who’s this?” Yuuko asked, smiling and extending her hand.

“Viktor Nikiforov,” Viktor said, reaching forward to shake her warm hand, noting the kind smile and the small dimples in her cheek, her wide brown eyes and dusting of freckles. _She’s beautiful_ , he thought. _No wonder Yuuri is in love with her._

Yuuko’s eyes widened. “ _The_ Viktor Nikiforov?” she asked, her voiced hushed in awe, as she ran her eyes over the unmistakeable silver hair, the razor sharp cheekbones. “Yuuri! Why didn’t you tell me your idol was-”

“YesthankyouYuuko!” Yuuri interrupted, diving bodily in between Yuuko and Viktor before she could further ruin his reputation, life and happiness.

Undeterred, she leaned around Yuuri, saying with a breathless smile, “But this is amazing! Viktor Nikiforov, in our restaurant! Hang on a moment, I just have to go and grab my husband. Takeshi!” Yuuko called, running back up the small flight of wooden stairs and out of sight. They heard muffled voices from above.

Viktor, at the word ‘husband’, had relaxed slightly, though he was clearly still slightly on edge. _Unrequited, then?_ he thought, fixing his eyes on the back of Yuuri’s head, staring at the small sliver of skin that appeared between his hair and the neck of his jumper as he peered back up the staircase, _though how she could resist Yuuri…_

A moment later, far heavier footsteps were heard, and a thickset man with a broad, tanned face and close cropped dark hair appeared, wiping his hands on a blue and white striped apron.

“Yuuri!” he said in a gravelly voice, seizing Yuuri round the neck and ruffling his hair, ignoring Yuuri’s squawks of protest. “And you must be Mr Nikiforov. I’m honoured to meet you. Yuuri has talked about you constantly ever since he was six, so I know what it must mean to him to have you staying here. Have you come to eat?”

Viktor’s mouth opened slightly, and he looked from Yuuri to Takeshi to Yuuko with an expression of dawning comprehension.

Yuuri freed himself from the headlock with a desperate wriggle, blushing furiously, and stammering incoherently in protest, seemingly not knowing whether to direct his apologies to Viktor or Takeshi.

“We have, I think,” said Viktor, and Takeshi, with Yuuko smiling over his shoulder, guided them both (Yuuri still mumbling incoherently under his breath, his face magenta) to a small booth at the back of the restaurant, mostly hidden from the other diners by an old paper screen, with delicate ink drawings of cranes and mountains on its worn surface.

Viktor and Yuuri slid into the booth, sitting opposite each other, Yuuri trying desperately to keep their knees from touching. Takeshi didn’t offer them a menu; rather, he promised to come back with some of his newest experimental recipes and all of Yuuri’s favourites, and left them alone.

Viktor was studying Yuuri’s face intently, and Yuuri was determinedly avoiding his gaze, staring at a slight burn mark on the surface of the wooden table. Viktor finally broke the silence.

“They were…friendly,” he said, his voice diplomatic and light, and Yuuri looked up from the burn mark with anguished embarrassment in his eyes. Yuuri was sure that he had aged forty years in the last ten minutes. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, bringing Viktor here.

“I’ve known the Nishigoris since I was born. Yuuko is a few years older than me, and she was always really kind to me in school, when the other kids…well, she looked out for me, anyway,” said Yuuri, his voice quiet and his face still burning. “Listen, what she said about you, it’s not…”

Viktor kept his eyes fixed on Yuuri’s face, waiting for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.

“So you and Yuuko aren’t…?” Viktor let his question tail off suggestively.

Yuuri looked up from the table in surprise, his genuine shock at the question evident in his wide eyes and slightly open mouth. “Me and Yuuko? No! No, absolutely not! Never in a million years!” Yuuri laughed slightly, and continued, “We’ve always been great friends. I used to think I had a crush on her before I was really old enough to know what a crush was, but really it was just because she was someone I looked up to, and as soon as I learned to tell the difference between the two feelings it went away. And ever since she and Takeshi got married, I’ve been friends with them both. They have triplets, which means I don’t get to see them very often because they’re kept so busy, but whenever I want to catch up with them I just come and eat here.”

Yuuri smiled to himself, remembering those younger days in which he and Yuuko would paint together in Minako’s attic, or feed the swans with his parents.

Viktor’s eyes, which had been almost unnoticeably tightened in some inner struggle, relaxed, and he smiled his heart-stoppingly beautiful smile at Yuuri, who immediately felt his brain melting out of his ear in response, unable to think of a single thing to say.

Luckily for Yuuri, at that moment Takeshi reappeared with what looked like ninety seven plates balanced on his arm, each tiny dish with some fantastical creation on it.

Viktor and Yuuri ate together, sharing each of the tiny dishes of sushi, discussing the flavours and deciding which their favourites were; Yuuri was still too embarrassed to say much, and Viktor's mind was so full that he didn't even notice the lack of conversation beyond the food; in fact, Viktor barely tasted any of it. Instead, his mind was whirling, processing what Yuuko had said. _I’m Yuuri’s…idol? Since he was six? What did that mean? Had that been why Yuuri had…on that night…?_

Finally, both Viktor and Yuuri finished eating, and Yuuri insisted on paying the bill, “To apologise for my friend’s terrible behaviour,” he said pointedly in a slightly louder voice than he needed to, aiming at Yuuko. She smiled angelically, and came over to hug Yuuri goodbye. She shook Viktor’s hand again, saying “It was so nice to meet you! Please do come back; I promise to behave, Yuuri, honestly, I will!”

Yuuri shook his head with a smile, and they left, Yuuri calling out a goodbye to Takeshi up the worn staircase.

“I know it’s not fancy, like you’re probably used to,” Yuuri said as soon as they were back in the slightly sun-warmed air of the street, “But it’s one of my favourite places, and…”

Viktor looked at Yuuri’s hopeful expression, and told him immediately that it was the best sushi he had ever tasted. Yuuri’s smile in response to his words was radiant.

They began the walk back to the gallery, and heard the distant chimes of St. Thorfinn’s striking half past two.

“What are you planning to do this afternoon?” Yuuri asked Viktor, as they wended their way through the back streets, which were covered in ivy and quiet in the tepid afternoon sun. “You know, the whole of that first floor is yours, as well as your flat. You can do what you want with it, and you’ve got it right up until you do your final exhibition at the end of the residency. Just ask me if there’s anything I can do to help…”

Yuuri trailed off, looking at Viktor’s suddenly excited expression slightly warily.

“There is something you can do to help!” Viktor exclaimed, stopping in the middle of the pavement and swinging round to face Yuuri, who squinted at him as he caught the full glare of the weak sun in his eyes. “I found our day of sightseeing to be very helpful in finding places around London that I might want to experiment with photographing; could we spend a few more days like that? Just walking around and seeing the places that you like the best? I think it would really help me develop a theme for the residency exhibition!”

Yuuri opened his mouth to refuse, to say that he was sure Viktor had better things to do and that he didn’t have to be so polite, when he remembered that day in the gallery, Viktor’s hand warm on his as he was dragged through Trafalgar Square by Viktor’s overwhelming general enthusiasm.

“Yes,” Yuuri replied, his voice quiet and considered, “That would be wonderful. I did say anything I can do to help, after all.”

Viktor beamed at him, and they continued their walk back to the gallery. As they were passing Yuuri’s parents bookshop, Hiroko stuck her head out of the door, her arms full of books and a bright smile on her round face.

“Yuuri! Viktor! Do you want to come round for dinner again this evening? I’m making duck!”

Yuuri stole a quick glance at Viktor, who immediately responded with the most enthused _yes, please_ that Yuuri had ever heard, his blue eyes shining and his voice vibrating with sincerity. Hiroko nodded, smiling, and retreated back into Ice Castle Books with her armful of novels.

Yuuri left Viktor at the door of the gallery, promising to pick him up in a few hours, in time for dinner. Viktor disappeared into the gallery with a flick of his silver ponytail, the door clicking shut softly behind him.

Yuuri turned away, and began to walk back up the street, his face slightly apprehensive. He had agreed to go round to Phichit’s after the gallery shut, and he knew that that meant the Chulanont Inquisition if he so much as stammered when saying Viktor’s name.

Sighing, Yuuri reflected that at least he was well dressed today, meaning that Phichit might let him off easy. And then Viktor was coming round for dinner. Again. To his house, to eat with his family.

A sudden sense of unreality hit Yuuri, the world seeming to come apart at the seams for a few brief seconds; Viktor’s presence was so real, so utterly human, that Yuuri had begun to forget that he was Viktor Nikiforov. Whom he had just agreed to spend several days with, alone, and who was eating duck with him that evening.

Yuuri’s feet slowed and his eyes glazed over for a few seconds as the utterly surreal nature of the whole situation lodged in his mind, his feet taking him on autopilot to Phichit’s front door, where with a numb finger he pressed the bell and heard the immediate quick, light footsteps on the stairs inside that meant Phichit would be there in a few seconds.

Yuuri shook off the strange moment of unreality, and by the time the door had opened, he was largely back on the real plane of existence.

Phichit, however, was not deceived by Yuuri's slightly off greeting, and Yuuri found himself seated on Phichit’s bed, surrounded by the usual snowdrift of sketches, before he knew what was happening.

Phichit sat down opposite him on the floor, noting warily the slightly hectic colouring on Yuuri’s face, the flush still on his cheeks, and the expression in his eyes.

“My dearest love,” Phichit said in a serious tone, “I think it’s time you and I had a conversation.”

 

**********

  
  
Viktor, when he closed the gallery door behind himself, took the stairs that led up to his flat two at a time, his heart thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings, his eyes starry and wide. He crashed through his front door, and immediately collapsed on the sofa, flinging his arms out about his head and humming to himself for a few moments, a few bars of a Russian love song. His hair fell over his shoulder and brushed the floor, the silver bright against the dark wood.

_We had lunch_ , Viktor thought. _And I was his idol. For who knows how long? Which would explain everything; why he’s so skittish, why he seems intimidated by being close to me, why he won’t let me…_

But Viktor cut himself off at that thought, having faithfully promised himself that he would allow Yuuri to dictate the pace that they went at, no matter how much he might want to hurry things along, and no matter what Yuuri had said on that winter night in the Russian gallery.

Viktor dug his phone out of his pocket, seeing that he had a message from Mila asking how he was, one from Georgi telling him that he thought Viktor was mad but a true Romantic ( _he used the capital letter_ , thought Viktor, _so I suppose it’s a compliment_ ) and nineteen missed calls from Yakov.

Viktor felt a slight stirring of guilt, but nothing too overwhelming; Yakov was probably calling just to shout at him again anyway. Though he was largely unbothered by the censure, Viktor nonetheless felt a small chip of ice lodge itself deep in his heart at the thought of Yakov, the man who had been more of a father to him than any of his blood relatives, begging him not to leave, and Viktor's quiet goodbye.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Viktor pressed the call button, and held the phone with practiced ease as far away from his ears as he could.

Sure enough, the call connected, and a bellow of sound emerged from the speaker.

“VITYA, WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING A MOBILE PHONE IF YOU ARE NEVER AVAILABLE ON IT?” came the static-heavy roar, the poor speakers on Viktor’s iPhone not designed to cope with an enraged Yakov Feltsman, who could probably communicate with distant galaxies if he really put his back into it.

“Hello Yakov!” Viktor sang cheerfully in response, the Russian feeling unfamiliar and strange on his tongue. He lay back down on the sofa, waving one hand in the air in abstract patterns as he spoke, then watching his pale fingers tracing Yuuri’s name. “Are you missing me?”

“No, you ungrateful little-” Yakov was cut off by a loud barking on the other end, and Viktor immediately cooed in response.

“Makkachin! My baby, how are you? Is Yakov looking after you? I miss you so much! There are so many squirrels for you here my darling!” At the sound of Viktor’s voice, the barking on the other end increased exponentially, now sounding delirious with excitement. Viktor smiled, though his heart contracted in pain; Makka was so far away…

Yakov made a disgusted sound and pulled the phone away from the excitable poodle. “She’s fine, Vitya, thought your insistence on running halfway across the globe to take up a position that you’re overqualified for has caused me no end of trouble with your sponsors. I’ve told them that you’ll have something great to show for your madness at the end of your residency. Will you?”

Viktor closed his eyes for a moment, and then said softly “I hope so, Yakov. I really hope so.”

Yakov grunted in response. “I can’t pretend to understand what you’re doing, Vitya, but I hope you have a plan, because if you don’t, your reputation is going to take one hell of a hammering. And anyway, that wasn’t why I called you. I just got the call telling me that your enormous, slobbering monster of a dog has just received the all clear to fly, and she’ll be with you in three days time. You have to pick her up from Heathrow Airport any time after two. And now I have to go, because unlike you, my other clients are waiting on tenterhooks for my advice, which they will undoubtedly _follow_. What a novel experience for me.”

Viktor sat up, his heart pounding in joy, and before Yakov could hang up said “Thank you, Yakov, for everything. I promise I won’t let you down. I just had to do this. I’ll explain everything if…well, one day.”

Yakov grumbled indistinctly, and hung up. Viktor smiled and hugged himself, the thought of Makka a small hot coal of joy in his heart. While he had his phone in his hand, he allowed himself one brief glance into the folder which he had been desperately trying to pretend didn’t exist since he had arrived in Yutopia.

The folder was called ‘Exhibition Party’, and there were several photos in it. Viktor opened his favourite, and gazed intently at it, letting his eyes wander over where Yuuri’s mouth met his cheek, and his own joyous expression...

Viktor shut the folder abruptly, locking his phone and shoving it deep down into his pocket again, where he couldn’t be tempted. He unslung his camera from around his neck, and flicked through the photos he had taken in an attempt to document the time he was spending with Yuuri. There was something there…

Viktor felt the small, strange lift in his heart which meant that an idea was percolating there. He knew that if he left it alone, it would make itself known to him in time, and then he would find his theme for the residency exhibition.

_In the meantime_ , Viktor thought, _I ought to shower, and go out and buy a bottle of wine for the Katsukis to say thank you for having me over._

_And in a few hours time_ , Viktor thought, _I’ll see Yuuri again_.

A dreamy smile on his face, Viktor dove into the shower, letting the heat of the water soothe his aching heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops! A very long chapter! This is turning out to be verrrrry slow burn, but I'm really enjoying writing it and I hope it's fun to read.
> 
> Please comment/leave kudos if you enjoyed <3


	6. Chapter 6

Dinner at the Katsuki’s house that evening was just as full of warmth and laughter as it had been the previous night.

As Victor lay in his still-unfamiliar bed that night, the chilled air drawing goosebumps from his skin, he wondered how he was ever going to leave this family.

He had never experienced anything like them before. They were so…warm. The family teased each other constantly, and stole each other’s food, and Mari would often punch Yuuri on the arm to emphasise a point she was making, but everything they did was so clearly saturated with love for each other that Victor found himself slightly breathless, wondering if this is what every family was like.

Victor rolled over, and curled into a ball beneath the covers.

At least he had the promise of tomorrow…

His thoughts began to drift, sleep darkening the edges of his mind, but there was something nagging at him, something which wouldn't completely quiet down and let him sleep. Victor turned over, scrubbing a hand across his eyes in frustration.

Suddenly, there it was. The thought.

He sat bolt upright, the warm covers falling away. The thought which had been percolating at the back of his mind, working away while his conscious brain was otherwise occupied, had finally made itself known.

Victor leapt out of bed, heedless of the cold night air, and rummaged frantically for a notebook, a spare sheet of paper, anything. His hand closed around a sketchbook that he usually used for charcoal sketches; perfect.

He rummaged some more, and found the charcoal, its dark smudges livid against his pale skin. Victor began sketching.

Several hours later, so late that it was early, he finally put the pages down. They were imperfect, and they were certainly not finished articles, but…

There was something there. Victor gazed around his bedroom, which was now papered with dark charcoal sketches. On them were the beginnings of something that Victor thought may, given time, become something that he could present with pride, with excitement, as he used to do. He felt that tiny flash of fire in his mind that had always burned so brightly in his early years, when inspiration had come to him every moment of every day. It wasn't a fire, not yet, but Victor thought that he at least had an ember which might one day burn brightly again. 

He climbed back into bed, abruptly exhausted now that the creative urge had left him. He needed a few hours of sleep at least; he would be seeing Yuuri that morning, which was approaching much faster than he had realised.

And now, finally, he had something to work with; something concrete beyond the wish that had brought him here, halfway across the world.

The thought warmed him as he drifted to sleep.

 

*********

 

Yuuri woke to the rude blaring of his alarm clock as it shattered the peaceful morning air.

He groaned, and turned over without opening his eyes, groping in the general direction of the shrill beeping. His hand encountered something that felt vaguely clock-shaped, and Yuuri fumbled with it, trying to find the snooze button. His sleep-clumsy fingers slipped, and there was a loud thud, followed by the continuing shrilling of the alarm tone from under the bed.

Yuuri groaned again, with more feeling this time, and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying unsuccessfully to press the sleep from them by force. He hated mornings. _Hated_ them. And there was an irritating nagging voice in the back of his brain that was urging him to get up, _get up, you’re late, late-_

Yuuri pulled the warm, enveloping covers off reluctantly, and sat upright. He groped for his glasses, and hooked them haphazardly over his ears, squinting at the bright daylight with deep loathing. The alarm finally gave up on him; it fell silent, abandoned beneath his bed.

As his brain ground sluggishly into action, Yuuri reached for his phone. It lit up, his background of Vicchan’s puppy pictures warming his heart as always, and he saw that he had a text.

From Victor.

Sleep vanished from his brain like morning mist under the desert sun. Yuuri rubbed at his eyes again, and slid his thumb across the screen, his heart suddenly pounding. The text blinked into life, and its innocent words screamed into his mind like dervishes.

_Yuuri! Hope you slept well; thank you again for dinner last night. Hope you don’t mind me texting you. Just wanted to check we’re still meeting at the Gallery at 8.30am? Love, V._

Yuuri read the text three times, each more frantically than the last. He looked at the tiny clock on his phone, and then the digital clock on his wall, hoping against hope that his phone might be in error.

It was already 8.03am.

Yuuri moved like lightning. He had never had a faster shower; his tooth-brushing probably set an international record. He threw on the clothes that met his hands first, and was just tying his shoes on when 8.30am arrived. Yuuri moaned in panic; _I cannot, will not, be the only person in the world who has ever been late to meet Victor Nikiforov. Oh my dear sweet lord. What if he’s left already? What if he decides to leave for good? I am so unprofessional, Minako is going to kill me, I’m just an idiot who somehow convinced everyone I can do my job-_

Cutting off his internal recriminations in the interests of speed, Yuuri sprinted down the stairs three at a time, heedless of his safety or that of several decorative vases near the bannisters. He flung himself out of the door, slamming it behind him as he sprinted down the familiar path to the gallery. The houses flashed by, and the minutes continued to tick, time not stopping for him even when Yuuri uttered his most heartfelt mental plea.

He finally screeched round the corner by Yutopia Gallery at 8.37am. His face was bright red, his shoes were half-untied, and Yuuri was sure that he was an unsightly, sweaty mess. He panted, hanging on to the Gallery railings like a life support, until he heard his name. He looked up, and his heart nearly stopped in his chest.

“Yuuri!”

Victor was still there. He had waited. Yuuri flushed hopelessly redder.

Victor was waiting outside the Gallery, leaning in his habitually elegant way against a lamppost, camera slung around his neck. His pale skin almost sparkled in the morning sun; his smile was bright and, Yuuri grumbled to himself, entirely inappropriately delighted for such an appallingly early hour.

Victor paused, and took in Yuuri’s red face, and his dishevelled clothes. Then he noticed that he was using the railings as a life-support system. He frowned, concerned.

“Yuuri?” He said, walking over and reaching one long-fingered hand down to grasp Yuuri’s chin, turning his face up towards his own concerned expression. Yuuri felt his face, impossibly, getting more flushed still; Victor’s fingers felt like a brand against his already-overheated skin. He made a colossal effort and stood straight, trying not to pant, and Victor dropped his hand immediately.

“I’m so sorry!” Yuuri said, staring up at Victor in an impassioned plea for forgiveness. His eyes were wide, and Victor noticed how they sparkled in the sun, as variegated as a tiger’s eye stone; it took him a moment to pay attention to what Yuuri was saying.

Victor blinked, genuinely confused. “Sorry? What for?”

Yuuri’s eyes widened further, his disbelief etched into every line of his face. “I’m late! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be; I’m not really a morning person, and it takes me a while to remember why on earth I ought to get out of bed on a _normal_ day, and I hadn’t left myself a reminder that we planned this, and…” Yuuri trailed off, gazing hopelessly up at Victor, who looked suspiciously like he was trying very hard not to laugh.

“I think, somehow, that I will survive being kept waiting five minutes by an eminent gallery owner such as yourself,” Victor said, and although his tone was very serious, his mouth quivered slightly. 

“Seven,” Yuuri said gloomily. Victor raised an eyebrow. “I kept you waiting seven minutes,” Yuuri said, his eyes downcast, sounding so remorseful that Victor couldn’t contain himself any longer.

He laughed, the sound bright and clear, bouncing from the walls of the tall town-houses that lined the street.

Yuuri looked up at him, shocked out of his misery. He had never heard Victor laugh like that, so uninhibited; the sound was intoxicating.

“Yuuri! Do you think people have always hung on my every word?” Victor said, reaching out a hand and resting it on Yuuri’s shoulder.

Yuuri blinked at him. Yes, he did think that. His answer apparently showed on his face, as Victor continued: “When I was young, just starting with Yakov’s agency, people would keep me waiting for meetings for _hours_. For some reason, it was always in the most freezing corridors in the most dreary buildings. I think your seven minutes can be forgiven, especially if you’re not a morning person.”

Victor smiled, and filed that knowledge about Yuuri away for a future date.

Yuuri managed to slow his heart rate down to something approaching a normal human speed, and let go of the railings.

“Thank you…I mean, shall we…Would you like to get coffee before we start the day?” Yuuri gestured vaguely in the direction of his favourite coffee shop, praying Victor would say yes, and he sighed in relief when Victor nodded. The two of them fell into step as though they had been doing so for years.

Yuuri broke the comfortable silence first.

“So what is it you want to do today?” he asked, trying not to sneak obvious glances at Victor as they walked. “I mean, I know you want me to show you around some more, but…”

Victor took his time in answering, gazing around him as they walked. The air was cool, but not cold; the sun was bright. Soon it would be a perfect early Spring day.

“Yuuri,” said Victor, and the pause spiralled expectantly as he took a deep breath before continuing, “I have Ideas.”

Yuuri quite clearly heard the capital letter. “Ideas? For the exhibition? Victor! That’s wonderful!”

Yuuri beamed, his eyes crinkling half shut in a rare unguarded smile. Victor nearly walked into a lamp post, avoiding it just in time to save his dignity.

“I’m glad you think so. I mean, they’re rough, and I’ll need to work on the composition, but…I think I can see where they’re going. Where I want them to go. And I have a theme.”

Victor didn’t elaborate, and Yuuri looked across at him. “A theme?” he asked, voice eager. Victor nodded, and Yuuri was mystified to see a light flush rising in his high cheekbones. “Will you tell me?” Yuuri asked, and after a slight pause Victor nodded again.

Yuuri’s heart was racing, and his thoughts were an incoherent stream of superlatives. _Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. I’m about to hear the theme of Victor Nikiforov’s next exhibition before anyone else. Kill me now. I have reached my zenith, and from here my life can only get worse._

Victor took a deep breath, and looked at Yuuri for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was almost… _cautious_ , thought Yuuri.

“The theme I have in mind is…Eros and Agape.” He paused, and peered at Yuuri, a hint of some unidentifiable emotion in his eyes.

Yuuri had stopped walking, and was staring at Victor, his eyes shining.

“I love it! It’s perfect! Something so emotional and idealistic, like your exhibition in Moscow seven years ago; we can even echo the décor you had then if you want!”

Victor looked at Yuuri for another long moment of silence, and then he coughed. “Actually, Yuuri…I have a favour to ask.”

Yuuri replied without hesitation, lifting his chin in immediate affirmation. “Anything! Ask whatever you need; I’m in charge of making sure this exhibition is a success, after all!”

“I need…that is, I wanted to ask…” Victor took a deep breath in through his nose, and then suddenly seized Yuuri by the shoulders. His fingers gripped tightly, and Yuuri could smell that scent which was so indisputably and uniquely _Victor_ , and his face was so close…

“Will you model for me, Yuuri? I…that is to say, I think you’d be perfect. I don’t want to use one of my usual models, they’re all so cynical about their jobs, any attempt at depicting the sort of love I want to show would look false. But you, you’re so…” Victor’s voice faded, and his eyes bore into Yuuri’s, who felt as though the bottom had suddenly dropped out of his world, because nothing made sense. Victor _couldn’t_ be asking him. Not _him_. Surely. _Surely_ …?

Victor was still gripping his shoulders. Yuuri could feel his fingers burning through his coat, smouldering into his skin as though they would leave permanent imprints there.

His expression was expectant, and then as the silence stretched longer and longer his eyes began to tighten, worry creeping into the faint lines around them. Eventually, Yuuri realised that he was waiting for an answer.

“I…I did say ask me anything, didn’t I?” Yuuri said, voice quiet and uncertain. Victor blinked once, twice, and then threw his arms around Yuuri. He was warm, and his grip was firm, and he was everywhere, and what was _happening_ -

Victor let him go, and Yuuri found he could breathe freely again, though he was sure that the by now near-permanent blush was high on his cheeks again.

“You will? You’ll model? Yuuri! This is wonderful!” Victor’s voice vibrated with joy, and he let Yuuri go. The loss of his warmth made the bright morning colder, and Yuuri drew his coat about himself more tightly.

They began walking again, both lost in their own thoughts.

Yuuri was trying to fit what had just happened into the shape of his life, and finding that there was no way that it would fit. Modelling? Him? For _Victor_?!

Victor was trying to keep his wildly enthusiastic speculations from running too rampant. He said yes, he said _yes_ , _yes_...

They turned the corner. The coffee shop that they had visited before, the Maison Du Soleil, was nearly empty at this hour; the commuters had long since left, and the after lunch crown had not yet descended.

They took seats by the window, and sipped at their coffee. Yuuri was still in a state of mild shock. He felt that there were some very important questions that he ought to be asking, but he couldn’t quite find them in the flood of embarrassed pleasure that filled his brain. He was modelling. For Victor Nikiforov. Him. Yuuri.

Victor coughed quietly, and Yuuri looked up, startled out of his incoherent thoughts.

“I feel there are some things I should clarify,” Victor said, and his deep voice with its sing-song intonation was as comforting as the coffee-scented steam which rose from behind the counter. “I promise this won't be an onerous job, or, I hope, an unpleasant one; it’s just that I think you’re perfect. For it. The theme, I mean. I'll direct you; you just have to do as I ask, and hopefully it won't even be too time-consuming.” Victor blushed, and sipped at his coffee again.

Yuuri blinked. “Thank you; I mean, I should tell you that I’ve never modelled before, and so I might be terrible. And I’m not exactly Christophe Giacometti,” Yuuri smiled wryly; Christophe, one of Victor's usual models, was unimaginably beautiful. Phichit could attest to that.

Victor snorted. “Christophe would be horrible for this theme. He’s so…earthly. I need someone who can embody both sides of the coin; who can show purity as well as pleasure, Agape as well as Eros. I think, from what I have seen, that you will be perfect.”

Yuuri was truly confused now. What Victor seen of him…? When had he ever shown anything approaching Eros to Victor Nikiforov?

But then Victor was licking some latte foam from the end of one of his long fingers, and Yuuri lost his train of thought.

 

*************

 

They spend the day wandering through the capital.

Yuuri, having largely recovered from his near heart-attack that morning, showed Victor some of the lesser-known haunts that he frequented on sunny days. They ate in the sunshine by the river, and as they wandered, they talked. Victor would occasionally photograph something, some angle which clearly spoke to him, although Yuuri could never see it himself. Sometimes he shot pictures of Yuuri, usually when Yuuri wasn’t expecting it; Victor always apologised afterwards, but said that he had to take them when Yuuri was unaware for the effect that he was after. He called them preliminary sketches; the bare bones that he would hand the body of his exhibition on.

By the time they arrived back at Victor’s flat, it was dark. The night was cold and clear, and frost crystals sparkled on the edge of the railings.

Victor stood by the steps that led up to his front door, and turned back to see Yuuri standing awkwardly a few feet away, his hands twisted behind his back.

“Do you want to come and see the initial sketches I was telling you about? It might be helpful, you know, to see them before we begin shooting..?” Victor asked, hoping against hope that he could prolong this day somehow, that he could make keep Yuuri just a few hours longer.

Yuuri looked up and smiled an acceptance, and Victor felt the long-buried bruises in his heart throbbing again. He turned, ruthlessly repressing his own runaway thought; he unlocked the door, and the two of them climbed the narrow staircase that led up the artist-in-residence’s flat.

When they reached it, Yuuri hesitated at the doorway, framed in the threshold. Victor turned round, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

“It’s just…strange. Seeing you here. I mean, _you_ , you know? I never even thought I’d meet you, and yet…” Yuuri stopped speaking, and met Victor’s eyes. His gaze was dark and serious, and there was something in it almost like awe.

The silence lengthened, and Victor’s heartbeat quickened. Yuuri wasn’t looking away; he couldn’t, even if he tried, Yuuri’s dark eyes holding him in place. Did he…was he..?

Yuuri looked down, and the spell was broken. Victor shook himself slightly.

“Tea?” he asked, and Yuuri nodded gratefully. Victor put the kettle on to boil, and reached for two mugs, the familiar motions slowing his heartbeat back to a more appropriate pace.

“While it brews, shall I show you the first sketches?” Victor asked, and Yuuri looked up immediately. The look on his face from a few moments ago was gone, replaced by the expression of a gallery owner about to see new artwork for the first time.

“These are very rough,” Victor warned, walking over and pushing the door to his bedroom. He held it open, turning the light on as he did so, and Yuuri stepped through.

He hadn’t been in this room in a long time; since Phichit did his residency. The décor had changed; Yuuri remembered it as being somewhat spartan, but now there was a huge wooden desk by a large window, and a wide, comfortable looking bed stood in the middle of the room on a pale blue rug.

Yuuri was trying very hard not to think about the fact that this was Victor’s bedroom, his _bedroom_ , and _oh_ _god_ there’s a pair of his trousers slung over the back of the chair, and the whole room smells of him, and _what_ would Phichit say..?

Victor let the door close behind them, and somehow the _thud_  of the wooden frame meeting the door was very loud in the silence. Yuuri felt Victor moving behind him, hyperaware of his presence, as he walked across to a loose bundle of papers on the desk.

He spread them across the pale wooden surface, their edges overlapping, and gestured to Yuuri to look.

Yuuri crossed the room and stood next to Victor, trying very hard to focus on the drawings in front of him. They were good. _Very_ good.

“These are…wonderful,” Yuuri breathed, his fingertips tracing the curving lines of charcoal, smudging dark dust on to his skin.

Victor was watching him. “You really think so?” he asked, and Yuuri met his gaze, eyes shining.

“They’re glorious. I can’t wait to see what you create,” he said, and Victor couldn’t bear it, Yuuri was standing so close, and he had to know, he had to know if Yuuri had ever meant what he said that champagne-tinted night.

“Yuuri…” he began, but Yuuri had looked away, and was tracing the contours of a sketch with almost religious attention. He didn’t look up, didn't even hear his name, too absorbed in concentration.

Victor felt the question lodge in his throat. Another time, he promised himself.

Another time.

 

**********

  
  
When Yuuri got home that night, he fell into bed without undressing.

He stared at the black charcoal dust that was still smudged onto his fingers.

Victor’s sketches. He’d managed to get messy from _Victor Nikiforov’s charcoal sketches._

Yuuri closed his eyes. And he was going to model. For Victor.

He knew that fear would come later, that he would no doubt regret his rash promise to do anything that Victor asked, but for now…

For now, Yuuri felt the joy pounding through his veins, joy for the fact that he had been given Victor’s time.

Even if it was just for now, he promised himself, he would be grateful for what he had. He wouldn’t ask for more.

This was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooo....! I'm back.........!
> 
> I am so sorry for seemingly abandoning this fic for a while without an explanation. To be completely honest with you, it was the first fic that I ever wrote, and I started it without having any idea how to actually write something; I'd never planned or sketched out a whole story, and I sort of dived in feet first without really thinking about how to carry on once I was in the water. HOWEVER. Now that I have a bit more of a handle on what I'm doing, and I've sort of got things under control, I am going to finish this fic. For sure. It's not dead, and whilst it might not be perfect I am definitely not going to leave it unfinished.
> 
> So here's an update! Please forgive any errors- it's late at night when I'm publishing this, and though I have proof read as thoroughly as my brain will allow, I might have missed the odd thing. 
> 
> I'm not sure when the next update will be, but now I have a plan sketched out, I think it'll be within a week or two. I'm finding writing slow-burn an interesting challenge!
> 
> On a side note- if anyone has any requests for one shots, or drabbles, or anything of that sort, then please come and find me on tumblr (cox-orange-pippin) because I've found that they're a great way of getting through writer's block, and I would love to try any ideas you have!
> 
> Love to you all- if you're still reading after such a long gap between chapters, then special thanks to you, and you're wonderful <3

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at cox-orange-pippin so please come and say hello <3


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